[rattray]

You could say the same thing about most people who make money and achieve some level of fame -- especially artists, designers, many entrepreneurs, and entertainers (including sports stars). Many times, terrific results seem like they could have been "easy" to come up with.

That doesn't take away from the fact that they had the creativity to think of it, did it, and added to our collective knowledge as a result. Sure, the results seem obvious in retrospect, and the process doesn't seem too tough to put together. But I'm grateful for their work nonetheless.

[Tomino]

I am sorry but make a study where you let 10 people meditate and 10 people not (I am aware that the numbers are not correct, just don't want to read it again) and then observe who is willing to give up seat is downright laughable. It has nothing to do with creativity. I imagine that the mentioned professor thought "Ok guys we need to do something new, meditation is now getting popular lets take a hit on it ASAP." There are two things that really irritates me about this:

1) The fact that they based the outcome on giving up seat for someone. They could as well give them a gun and see who is willing to shoot someone. it has NOTHING to do with meditation. What they should test instead is work productivity, energy levels, sleep habits etc. those are factors that are supposed to be influenced by meditation. But why didn't they? Well because it would require a hell of a lot more work. Why not just do the one with taken chair? ... lol

2) The fact that this article is published by New York Times. This "work" should not get attention from big publications in my opinion.

[1337biz]

But those do usually not slap the "science" label on their result/products. You would most likely laugh in a similar fashion at some guy who's product works well for 10 out of 20 random clients and now goes around telling the world that he has scientific evidence that his product is the only product that got it right. The social world is complex and anyone pretending things can be explained by a simple cause-effect relationship is just a charlatan.