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The boy who knew too much: a child prodigy

This is the true story of scientific child prodigy, and former baby genius, Ainan Celeste Cawley, written by his father. It is the true story, too, of his gifted brothers and of all the Cawley family. I write also of child prodigy and genius in general: what it is, and how it is so often neglected in the modern world. As a society, we so often fail those we should most hope to see succeed: our gifted children and the gifted adults they become. Site Copyright: Valentine Cawley, 2006 +

Friday, October 14, 2011

Of felines and humans.

Sometimes, we humans think we are unique in the animal world, in ways which, actually, we are not. There is a tendency to attribute to humans a special set of values and behaviours which, of course, we think, no animal could ever have. Recently, I have come to observe how similar another animal is, to us, in what, to me, were surprising ways.

At our house in Kuala Lumpur, we have five cats – well, one mother cat and four kittens. We didn’t actually buy these cats…the mother turned up one day, and miaowed in search of food…and we, touched, perhaps, gave her some. She has stayed ever since.

Now, not long ago, I noted something very sweet about the mummy cat’s behaviour. Whenever I put out food for her and her family of kittens, she would not eat anything. She would sit off to one side and let her kittens eat, watching them warmly. She was never seen to eat, until her kittens had had their fill. Sometimes, this meant that they left nothing for her…but she would not complain.

This was quite affecting to see. It seemed to speak of a motherly love, of the cat, for her kittens. She was putting their needs before her own. This is something which a human mother might readily do, of course – but it was a surprise, to me, to see a cat…an animal with quite a small brain…do so.

On another occasion, I saw another behaviour which is very familiar from human conduct. One of her kittens, has what I would call a bad personality. He is always hissing at everyone – be it human, or animal. He even hisses when he seeks food from us. It is a nasty little hiss and sounds quite offensive, in a way. Well, one day, he hissed at his own mother. She reacted swiftly by hissing back at him, then swiping him, stiffly, with her paw. He was knocked back.

This again, seemed very “human”. It was of a mother scolding her child and then slapping him, for his poor manners. Again, I found it unexpected, since the behaviours were exactly akin to what one would find in a human, in similar circumstances.

It is observations and reflections like this that lead me to understand that we should all be much more kindly to our fellow animals in this world. They are much more like us, than you might believe. Yes, they are simpler – but they often share common “emotions” , which allow us to see parts of ourselves in them. It would not surprise me if there were not some common nature and set of responses, spread widely throughout the animal kingdom. I have seen enough of such, in our cats, to believe so.

If you have any interesting animal stories, please share them below.

Thanks.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

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Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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posted by Valentine Cawley @ 9:47 PM 

2 Comments:

Blogger cekgu nixa said...

hello, mr cawley...

I, representatives of university of associations of gifted & talented apply to conduct interviews with you and your child, Ainan as our references to the case study and research that we carried out to identify the gifted children ...
this case study is important as it is needed in the credit requirements of the course work during our study at this university.

therefore, I hope you can think of this matter accordingly. I also hope to hear feedback from you as soon as possible. thank you very much for your cooperation...

9:11 PM  
Blogger Valentine Cawley said...

Dear Shahru Niza,

We really don't have much time for this kind of thing. However, please send me your questions and an indication of what you would like to do with Ainan and I will see what we can do. It should be clear that we may not have time to help you, but I will certainly look at what interests you.

Please email me.

1:37 PM  

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