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Perhaps this discussion should be called Contextualizing Creativity. Issues of the context for creativity have been raised by everyone who has participated in this thread. Ken noted that: "In science or mathematics, progress often takes place when someone finds a way to think around what has been done, and to think in new ways. In some cases, those new thinkers build very clearly on the work of their predecessors, listening to their elders as it were. In other cases, only by ignoring or neglecting elders and conventional wisdom does progress occur." While agreeing with the need to escape from conventional wisdom in order to be creative I submit that science and mathematics actually require and promote acts of creativity-in-context for progress to occur. (Validations don't usually qualify as creative.) Amanda rightly pointed out that creativity is always situated in some context and Cameron seemed to think that it had perverse effects on how people ought to work together. My view is that people are being educated to conform to the norm rather than to develop their creativity for the purposes of improving whatever they confront. Because the information before us is complex, disjointed, and subject to misinterpretation I believe that the education, particularly of children, should reinforce the correlates that Mackinnon so carefully uncovered, egomania be damned. Creatively seems to frighten or confuse people when it should challenge them to be so. Where did we go wrong? Chuck