On Genius & Happenstance in Scientific Discovery

Abstract

On June 18, 1858, Charles Darwin, a noted and widely respected British naturalist, received another letter from a fellow naturalist collecting specimens halfway around the world, in the Malay archipelago. The correspondent asked Darwin to review a manuscript and forward it on to a colleague. A conventional professional courtesy. Almost routine. But Darwin read the enclosed essay with dismay. It was, as he confided to a friend, a nearly perfect abstract of his own thoughts, which he had committed to paper some two decades earlier, but never published. The writer was Alfred Russel Wallace. Like Darwin, he had discovered the role of variation and selection in the origin of new species. Such independent discoveries invite reflection on the role of creativity in science. Why does one person, and not another, make a significant discovery? We tend to regard momentous insights as acts of genius, an inherent property of the person. But when two scientists make the same discovery, is the genius shared or does the coincidence reflect an inevitability? After grasping Darwin’s central idea, Thomas Huxley later recalled thinking, “How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!” (Huxley, 1887, p. 197). He chastised himself and colleagues: “we reproached ourselves with dullness for being perplexed with such an inquiry.” Of course, that is the nature of virtually every discovery. It seems perfectly obvious once someone has already articulated it. The prospective view is far less clear. And for that very reason, Huxley’s clever remark was full of irony: namely, we owe the discovery of natural selection to exceptional insight. On Huxley’s principle, generally endorsed I think, Darwin and Wallace are each honored for their genius. “Great minds think alike,” we often hear (Carroll, 2009). Here I wish to challenge the conventional view of genius and discovery, this month’s …