Book chapter
Foraging
Turning Points, 5
01 Jan 2011
Abstract
Creative thinking in a broad range of scientific discoveries is similar to food foraging. A food forager uses creative processes when finding the next patch of food. Decisions made for optimal foraging need to take into account the uncertainties and risks of the investment of time, energy, and other resources and the expected gains. If foragers have a vast number of alternatives to consider but only a tiny chance of finding anything useful, then the foragers are alert to scents, signs, and other types of cues to avoid an unproductive search. A scientist, as a forager and creator of new knowledge, faces similar challenges of finding patches of ideas, theories, and evidence in scientific inquires. Since scientific breakthroughs, or transformative discoveries, are truly novel in creating a new way of thinking, these involve the identification of patches of knowledge that are often either remote from the state of the art or non-existent. Notable examples of this include searching for earth-like planets in the Universe, searching for satisfactory compounds in chemical space for drug discovery, or searching for new ideas that may revolutionize a field or lead to the birth of a new field.
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Details
- Title
- Foraging
- Creators
- Chaomei Chen
- Publication Details
- Turning Points, 5
- Publisher
- Springer Nature; BERLIN
- Number of pages
- 51
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Information Science (Informatics)
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000301757800005
- Other Identifier
- 991019196669404721
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- Web of Science research areas
- Information Science & Library Science