“A new theory suggests that creativity comes in two distinct types – quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet.” Wired is all over this supposedly ingenious theory of Chicago economist David Galenson, “nothing less than a unified field theory of creativity.” Only it is not a new theory at all. Writers on creativity have long distinguished the brash immature version, often a flash-in-the-pan, from the more measured mature creativity which emerges later in life and seems to build more on a lifetime’s groundwork. There also seems to be a relationship between the respective style of creativity and either iconoclasm or reverence, not surprisingly. It strikes me that it is sometimes more difficult to recognize mature creativity, and a fortiori to proclaim it genius, since it is a matter of opinion whether it is anything more than mere synthesis of, or even borrowing from, the prior creative work in whose tradition it is embedded and on which it draws. There may be an inverse correlation between the frequency with which someone is proclaimed a mature genius and the critic’s familiarity with what has already been done in the field. Perhaps that is why the Wired writer is so enamored of Galenson’s work.