Creativity, motivation theory

Esthetics More than any other scientists, chemists make heavy use of all kinds of means of visualization, from simple drawings to virtual reality. In addition, chemists have increasingly made claims to the beauty of their synthetic products, and there is clear empirical evidence that this is also an actual research motivation. Both call for systematic investigations of the role of esthetics in chemical research (Schummer 1995, 2003a Spector and Schummer 2003). In particular, esthetic analysis may help understand crucial issues of research creativity and innovation. If beauty is an accepted research value, we need to understand on what esthetic theory that notion of beauty is based and how esthetic values relate to other research values, both epistemological and moral. 

This strange situation has motivated some modem philosophers to claim that the objects of science - the scientific world - is a social constmction. The model objects of science are social constmctions based on our interests and social attitudes. Our theories about these objects are also social constmctions. Consequently, science is a product of creative imagination that in a serious way is circular. Its conception of reality and its theories of this reality are constmctions of our mind that are more governed by social values than by confrontation with an objective reality. 

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