The Adjacent Possible Is A Kind Of

I Suspect Millions Of People From My Generation Probably Have Comparable Stories To Tell: If Not Of Sports Simulations Then Of Dungeons & Dragons, Or The Geopolitical Strategy Of Games Like Diplomacy, A Kind Of Chess Superimposed Onto Actual History.

Legendary Innovators Like Franklin, Snow, And Darwin All Possess Some Common Intellectual Qualities—a Certain Quickness Of Mind, Unbounded Curiosity—but They Also Share One Other Defining Attribute. They Have A Lot Of Hobbies.

As Much As We Sometimes Roll Our Eyes At The Ivory-tower Isolation Of Universities, They Continue To Serve As Remarkable Engines Of Innovation.

This Is How Great Intellectual Breakthroughs Usually Happen In Practice. It Is Rarely The Isolated Genius Having A Eureka Moment Alone In The Lab. Nor Is It Merely A Question Of Building On Precedent, Of Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants, In Newton's Famous Phrase. Great Breakthroughs Are Closer To What Happens In A Flood Plain: A Dozen Separate Tributaries Converge, And The Rising Waters Lift The Genius High Enough That He Or She Can See Around The Conceptual Obstructions Of The Age.

How Could So Many Intelligent People Be So Grievously Wrong For Such An Extended Period Of Time? How Could They Ignore So Much Overwhelming Evidence That Contradicted Their Most Basic Theories? These Questions, Too, Deserve Their Own Discipline: The Sociology Of Error.