Which fields require the most imagination/creativity?

[KGkhan23]

Hey everyone. We've all heard it said that to be a great economist, you have to be creative. Simple enough, but it's got me thinking about the role of creativity and different modes of thought in various fields, both within economics and without. While one could justifiably say that to do original research in any area is by definition being creative, I want to break this down more specifically.

A few questions/issues I'd like your thoughts on:

-Do social sciences require more or less imagination than do natural sciences? Those of you who have some biology will be familiar with the massive increases in reliable data we have about genetics and protein manufacture/function, and the formation of fields like systems and computational biology to try and process this information. This is obviously pretty different from the way things work in economics, where the problem is more often too little information rather than too much, and economists have to put effort into finding useful proxies to the variables they actually want to measure (like parking tickets in New York as a measure of corruption, for those of you who keep up with the pop econ literature). Also, graduate students in the harder sciences often function initially as research assistants, and gradually develop their own research interests over the course of many lab rotations. What does this say (if anything) about the difference between these fields and economics?

-Within economics, is it more necessary to be creative to do theory or to do empirical research? Theory obviously involves more hardcore mathematics, which requires abstract thinking, but empiricists have to do the whole finding proxies thing, which definitely requires them to do some outside the box thinking as well. Is there any answer here?

-What about between specific fields in economics, like development, industrial organization, etc. Do any of these guys have to put more effort into finding a good research project than the others? Does any field have massive amounts of data sitting out in front of them like the mathematical biologists do, just waiting to be decoded?

Note: I've not bothered to be especially precise in my descriptions, lumping things into categories (like social sciences and natural sciences) that aren't in reality as clean cut as they are on paper, and drawing lines (like between theory and empirics) that are really kind of fuzzy and have a lot of mixing/gray area in between. This is just for purposes of discussion and brevity. Let me know what you all think.

[Golden Rule]

Do social sciences require more or less imagination than do natural sciences? Those of you who have some biology will be familiar with the massive increases in reliable data.... This is obviously pretty different from the way things work in economics, where the problem is more often too little information rather than too much...

I feel you've overgeneralized. There's a lot of heterogeneity in how much data is available vs. time spent data gathering in biology, just like there is across various aspects in economics. Some spend a lot of time doing experiments/ getting data in either field, some don't. I lived two years with a molecular bio grad student. In that field, I feel you spend a lot of time having to deal with the mechanics of your experiments, and you spend a lot of time confined to lab. Economics is generally not like this, except maybe if your doing field experiments, though surely there are big differences between working with human subjects vs. other organisms.

Also, graduate students in the harder sciences often function initially as research assistants, and gradually develop their own research interests over the course of many lab rotations.

Well, my impression a typical grad student does maybe 1 rotation per quarter during the first year and then picks a lab and specializes. This is in contrast to economics, where you don't specialize at all after year one, then you pick two fields, and then you do what you want. The big difference is you're much more tied to your lab as a bio grad student than you are tied to anyone as an econ grad student. And of course plenty of econ grad studentes will work as research assistants at some point during their tenure.

-Within economics, is it more necessary to be creative to do theory or to do empirical research? Theory obviously involves more hardcore mathematics, which requires abstract thinking, but empiricists have to do the whole finding proxies thing, which definitely requires them to do some outside the box thinking as well. Is there any answer here?

I think your description sells theory a bit short, just by saying theory is about using hardcore math. I'd say theory is more about taking a real-world problem and modeling it and making your model as simple as possible, and that requires a lot of creativity, though it sometimes requires math, but the best theory uses as little math as possible. And then empiricists can then test the theories, and theorists can then develop new models based on empirical results. They complement each other well.

So no, I don't think there's an answer, but it is interesting to point out the differences between the fields, and some will be more suited for the kind of thinking in one kind of work vs. another.

[rvalchev]

They require different kinds of creativity. With theory, you need to be able to switch back and forth between real world and abstract mathematics the whole time. Economists are not simply mathematicians, because we do not live in the abstract world of mathematics. We don't take abstract problems and find creative solutions (which is incredibly hard, not letting them down in any way ) but set the real world in abstract model terms and then solve it. So you need to be able to 1) understand reality, 2) understand how to creatively interpret it in abstract erms 3) find a creative and robust solution to your model. There's lots of switching back and forth ... in my own interaction with mathematicians, I've found they generally lack this focus on "okay, but what do my equations tell me about the real world ?" After all, econ models should not be cherished if they don't explain a real phenomenon. Without their practical meaning, they are simply exercises in mathematics.

On the other hand, applied econ earthlings need to take the models and then figure out how, if in any way, they can be tested with the actual data we get to observe. We should never forget that theoretists, most of the time, have it easy because they don't have to worry about what can be observed.

So I really think it's just different types of creativity, but not different amounts of creativity that is required. There's a niche for everybody and in the long term the market for research projects will be in equilibrium with people either dropping out of it or finding the niche which plays the best to their strongest sides.

[Golden Rule]

To build a little on the last post, creativity is more of relative concept, while the question seems to be framing an absolute one. If you're the first person to think of something, it's creative. Once you've published the idea, reproducing that idea is no longer creative. In the simplest possible model of field choice in which people have similar talents, you'd expect the difficulty of coming up with new ideas in different fields to balance out in the long run.

[KGkhan23]

I fear my sleepiness when I started this thread has made me sound like more of a jerk, and less knowledgeable, than I really am, which is saying something.

I feel you've overgeneralized.

As I sort of, but not really said in my original post, I'm not trying to give an exhaustive description of biology in general. I was describing a specific phenomenon in one corner of biology, where there really is an influx of data. It is an overgeneralization to say that biologists never have to experiment and can just sit back and play with models, but that isn't what I meant to say. Regardless, my purpose in writing this was just to see what everyone thought about the role of creativity in different fields.

I think your description sells theory a bit short, just by saying theory is about using hardcore math.

Again, I didn't describe what I meant very well. While my primary interest is in empirics, I don't want to come off as someone who doesn't respect theory. I do believe that if the findings of empiricists don't lead to newer and more accurate models being formed, then their (empiricists) usefulness is limited. All things considered, I think it takes more creativity to be a Krugman than to be a Duflo (not to say anything against the latter, who is one of my favorite authors), though this doesn't affect my research interests. Just wanted to hear what you guys thought.

Well, my impression a typical grad student does maybe 1 rotation per quarter during the first year and then picks a lab and specializes.

I think there's actually a lot of heterogeneity in the amount of lab rotations done by students, and this varies both by field and by personal preference. I've heard of people doing three and I've heard of people doing half a dozen or more. Either way, the point here is exactly what you said, that in some natural sciences, there is an institutionalized tying of people to their labs, which I think discourages creativity, to some extent at least. I contrast this to some economists making a point of saying that you should look for research ideas in the newspaper, not in the journals.