On the Art and Craft of Doing Science

A scientist’s personal reflections on how to harness creativity and curiosity to generate new ideas and discover the unexpected

Like any creative endeavor, science can be a messy and chaotic affair. On the Art and Craft of Doing Science shares the creative process of an innovative and accomplished scientist, taking readers behind the scenes of some of his most pioneering investigations and explaining why the practice of science, far from being an orderly exercise in pure logic, is a form of creative expression like any other art.

Kenneth Catania begins by discussing how ideas set the stage for scientific breakthroughs and goes on to describe ways to approach experimental design. He sheds light on the importance of art in making discoveries and demonstrates how to find and tell a compelling story about a scientific result while accurately communicating its findings. What role does failure play in science? Is it possible to fail better? How do you define success? Catania provides insights to these and other questions, along the way sharing the lessons he’s learned from diverse figures ranging from science philosopher Thomas Kuhn to novelist Stephen King.

Blending illuminating historical examples with insights from Catania’s own groundbreaking research in biology and neuroscience, On the Art and Craft of Doing Science draws parallels with art and writing to reveal the creative side to the practice of good science.

Kenneth Catania is Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University. A MacArthur Fellow and Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author of Great Adaptations: Star-Nosed Moles, Electric Eels, and Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries Solved (Princeton).