Terms like “deviant” and “misfit” are normally freighted with negative connotations. But neuroscientist Beau Lotto explains in his new book, Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently, that it is our ability to defy conformity that has triggered nearly every advance in human progress. The next big innovation probably won’t be a new technology, he says, but a new way of seeing.

When National Geographic caught up with him at his home in New York City, he explained how a blind boy used echolocation to navigate the world, why the color red doesn’t exist, and why scientific research can lead to compassion.

[Laughs] I met Jerry through another friend, Peter Baumann from Tangerine Dream. Peter started a project called