I was once a fairly talented writer, but coding is less effort and on average better paying, so that's the path I chose. In the end I really don't see that big of a difference in the creative process. Granted, once you focus on a specific path for several years you change your relative strengths so it's easy to confuse innate talent with effort.
Well, there is: One that doesn't express your viewpoint well, for example. It depends on precisely what you are trying to accomplish in writing it, of course.
Mathematical proofs require a lot of creativivty, too. There are many different ways to prove a given theorem, and it takes quite a bit of imagination to come up with one.
I'd say the main difference is emotional. Being creative in the humanities requires a certain emotional madness, which can be especially debilitating. Scientists and mathematicians mostly just need to be obsessive, focused, and good at ferreting out hard to recognize patterns.
Mathematicians typically deal with abstract problems that have no direct relation to human feelings. Novelists, artists, and social scientists typically do the opposite.
My guess is that the average artists and writer is LESS creative then the average scientist. If for no other reason, then because the barrier to entry is much lower. Do you need anything besides attitude to be an artists? And science is hard and intensely creative work. And for that matter, so is engineering.
Don't you think that creating requires at least as much dedication as science ? After all, in art you never know that you're right, whereas in science you could verify it quite easily.
The creativity in science does not come from the verification stage, but from the stage where you figure out how to attack a problem and formulate theories.
The "end" of science isn't the verification stage either. If you're wrong, you use that to refine your theories and research strategy, using creativity, and continue testing.
You hear artists say things like "This work isn't done yet, something is missing", as if that's some kind of exceptional state for the artist, yet they never actually complete it. Do legitimate scientists say that? I wouldn't think so, since continuous refinement the default state of science.
I play a bit of music, I suck, but I do play, and I can absolutely tell you I KNOW when it's wrong. Not just out of tune but WRONG. And as the grand parent poster pointed out, the creativity in science isn't in the verification part.
My guess is that artists and writers are more creative than scientists due to the randomness of a flawed brain.
But obviously we can get randomness from other sources such as computers. So maybe normal brains in combination with computers can be creative too.