Part of the maturity of the sciences is an appreciation of which questions are best left to other disciplinary approaches. - Howard Gardner

In a typical approach, historiometric investigators like Simonton review large bodies of data to determine the decade of life in which creative individuals are most productive. Such studies have led to the findings that maximal productivity typically occurs between ages thrity-five and thirty-nine, but that profiles differ appreciably across disparate domains of knowledge: thus, poets and mathematicians reach an apogee in their twenties or thirties, while historians or philosophers may peak decades later.

"What is true of physics at its best may pertain as well to papers about physics. It is only on the surface, suggests Gerald Holton, that Einstein's papers of 1905 appear disparate. Three epochal papers, written but eight weeks apart, seem to occupy entirely different fields of physics: an interpretation of light as composed of quanta of energy; an explanation of Brownian motion that supports the notion of the atomic nature of matter; and the introduction of the "principle of relativity," which reconfigured our understanding of physical space and time. However, Holton idicates that all three papers arise from the same general problem-fluctuations in the pressure of radiation. Holton also notes a striking parallel in the style of the papers. Einstein begins each with a statement of a formal asymmetry, eliminates redundancy, and leads to one or more empirical predictions."

No less than human beings, human institutions exhibit constraints. Schools or factories or offices may be malleable, but they are not infinitely so. Economies of scale, vexations of human relations, bureaucratic histories, diverse and changing expectations, and pressures for accountability burden all significant human institutions. In the past, serving a smaller and less diverse clientele, schools faced certain problems; today, in a rapidly changing world, where the schools are expected to serve the multiple needs of every young individual, the limitations of this institution are sometimes overwhelming. If one wishes to bring about change in schools, it is important to understand their modes of operation no less than one understands the operations of individuals within them. Accordingly, following the investigation of constraints on human knowing, I consider some limits governing educational institutions, most especially schools. A focus on children and schools brings us face-to-face with a third dimension: the question of which knowledges and performances we value. If one considers school strictly as a place in which certain criteria are to be met (say, for the purpose of certification), it matters not what use one can subsequently make of the skills and knowledge acquired there. One could readily tolerate schools where understanding was considered irrelevant or even noxious. But if one wishes to argue that school should relate to a productive life in the community, or that certain kinds of understanding ought to be the desiderata of education, then the research results I have described are consequential.