Science News

“There’s kind of this common idea that too much knowledge can be a hindrance to creativity,” Huber says. It might be a child or an outsider who comes up with a brilliant new way to solve a problem, for example. Maybe it’s because experts know too much that they’ll stick with a familiar idea—like a familiar word—rather than coming up with something new. “To be creative, you need to use the knowledge related to the problem but not be biased to give the same answers that work for other problems.”