I debunked this myth – made popular by Ken Robinson – a long time on this blog, and also more extensively in our first Urban Myths book. This new video uses new research to further debunk this idea. Link to the mentioned study under this video.

The summary of the study by Tamara Paulin et al:

• Temporal and prefrontal brain regions support divergent thinking.
• Deterioration of the semantic memory system is a core feature of semantic dementia.
• Divergent thinking on the Alternate Uses Task is compromised in this syndrome.
• Semantic processes are crucial for creative and flexible thought.

As always my dear fellow researcher Christian Bokhove had some interesting additional thoughts:

And another thing more generally related to the ‘knowledge essential’ view, is expressed by Sternberg in one of the chapters, namely that knowledge can also be barrier. pic.twitter.com/CiYlMq8ivK

— Christian Bokhove (@cbokhove) November 12, 2020