The birds and the bees.

It is ever illuminating to see the world through a child’s eyes. Once grown up, this is quite a challenge, however, as a parent, all I have to do is listen, to know again, the thoughts of a child and their perspectives on the world.

Today, Fintan, eight, approached his mother in a reflective mood. His voice was soft and insightful.

“Mummy,” he began, intently, “I think it is harder to be a girl...”

Her ears perked up and her eyes gazed down on her middle son.

“...because girls have to give birth.”

She was touched by his words, for she learnt, in that moment, that her son understood what every mother goes through, to create their children. To have such appreciation, from her young son, was warming indeed.

I like seeing my children come to their own understanding of the world. More interestingly, I like to see them come to their own views on it – to see them weigh issues and come to judgements. Usually, I let them come to their own views, and do not impose mine. It is much better for a child to think their own thoughts and form their own view on the world. It is also much more interesting. Children who have been indoctrinated too much – as some children are – are always so dull. It is much more refreshing to hear a child’s genuine thoughts, based on their own personal thinking – and that is what I hear, everyday, in my household. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Today, Fintan made my wife very happy – simply because he shared one of his own thoughts. Beautiful.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

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

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

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

A cat called Cow.

Until sometime last night, we had a cat called Cow. It was a black and white cat, with patches of each colour, like a cow. Hence, my kids chose that name for it. It was a young cat, perhaps 9 months old. She had an adorably sweet personality and was very warm and seemingly loving, nudging adults and children alike, as it to say hello. Of all her mother’s kittens, she was the one who liked to stay closest to her mother. This morning, my son, Fintan, 8, found her dead.

It was a bit of a shock to be told this news. You see, we have four young cats, who were dumped on our doorstep by their mother. Of all the four, Cow was by far the most charming. In fact, she was the only one that seemed to have its own true personality. The others were mainly just hungry and out for food the whole time. We had planned to give the other three away, and keep Cow. So it was unwelcome news to see Cow stretched out stiffly on the ground, upside down, with her chest exposed, as if arching in pain, her mouth open in a grimace of surprised agony.

Upon her chest, there was an oval wound, about an inch across. Something had put a hole in her chest, on the underside. Had she been bitten by an animal? Had she fallen on something sharp? It was all the more surprising to see her dead like this, since we had seen her alive only hours before.

The children stared at her unmoving body in silence, as we prepared to bury her. My wife’s father was here. He had dug a rectangular hole in the garden for Cow – a little grave. All the children stood around eyes fixed on Cow. They were unusually quiet. Cow didn’t look quite real anymore. She was completely stiff and looked like a stuffed toy – not an ex-cat, at all. The absence of life, made her look as if she had never been animate. She simply looked like an artist’s impression of a cat – and not a very convincing one at that. It is funny what death can do. It makes even the most living animal, look rather unreal. I was struck, then, by what had made Cow such an interesting cat. It was her personality – the way she moved, what she did, her seeming intentions and the general impression of warmth in her actions. All that was gone. Without her animating personality, Cow did not even look like Cow anymore. She looked like a cat shaped black and white object, with a pink hole in her chest.

We buried Cow, in silence and replaced the turf on top of her. The boys didn’t say anything. I don’t think they knew what to make of it all. This was their first direct acquaintance with death. I don’t think they have ever seen a dead mammal, or human, before. Cow had been their favourite cat. In all, I think they took it very well, though I could tell they were a bit shocked, since there had been no forewarning.

Last night, I had heard dogs barking, rather aggressively at about 3 am. Perhaps that was when Cow was attacked and died. Had the dogs come onto our property or had Cow wandered onto theirs? We shall never know. It was clear though that she had dragged herself back to her favourite spot in the garden and died near where we used to feed her. She had come home, for her final moments.

I was going to write about Cow a long time ago, because I thought her funny and endearing. I never expected the first time to write of her, would be of her early death. Reflecting on why she died, rather than any of her siblings, I think it may very well have been her colouration. The others were shades of brown and would be difficult to see at night. She was black and white and would have been easy to spot, at night. I think that which made her beautiful to look at, may also have cost her, her life.

My wife Syahidah reassured Fintan. “Cow has gone to Cow heaven to meet all the other “cows”.”

He smiled at that, finding it either a comforting or a funny thought. It wasn’t clear which.

Thank you, Cow, for being so sweet and making us all smile, at your warmth. My sons, in particular, will miss her, though my wife and I will too.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

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

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

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Are actors dumb?

It is not difficult to find someone who believes actors are dumb. Indeed, some actors encourage this impression by the kinds of interviews they give. However, my experience, in the past, with actors, is that, in general they are bright – at least the ones I worked with are. What makes film-making interesting, as much as anything else, is the conversations to be had, with the other cast members, during breaks in filming: why? Because they are relatively smart.

Now, my personal observation that actors seem smart and make for good conversationalists, has some interesting scientific backing. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the LSE found, in his research, that attractive people have higher IQs than unattractive people. The average discrepancy was 12.4 IQ points – which is really quite a lot. The disparity was greater for attractive and unattractive men, with the difference being 13.61 IQ points. For women the difference was 11.39 IQ points.

It is not much of a leap to see that this supports my personal experience that actors are relatively bright. You see, to be cast as an actor, in a film, one usually has to be more attractive than the average person. Thus, the cast of a film will be selected for attractiveness and will be superior in that respect. Since attractiveness and intelligence have a correlation of 0.381, there will be a tendency for the more attractive actors and actresses, to also be smarter than the average person as well. Hence, my experience that they make for good conversation.

So, the next time you hear someone call actors “dumb”, you might just like to point their way to Kanazawa’s research on attractiveness and intelligence. If an actor or actress is good looking, they are also likely to be relatively intelligent, too – or at least 12.4 IQ points above their unattractive peers, anyway.

Satoshi Kanazawa made a very interesting point in an article he wrote for Psychology Today. He noted that the correlation of intelligence and attractiveness was exactly the same as the correlation of intelligence and education...0.381. Thus, he pointed out, quite tellingly, that you are as safe to make a judgement on someone’s intelligence from an assessment of their attractiveness, as you are from knowledge of their education. That struck me as rather interesting. So, all you have to do to see whether someone is likely to be intelligent is to judge whether are pretty or handsome!

Please note the limitation on this. The mean difference in intelligence between the attractive and the unattractive was only 12.4 IQ points. It wasn’t 50 IQ points. So just because someone is pretty, that doesn’t mean they are a genius, too. However, it does mean that they are less likely to be seriously dumb – and that they are more likely to be a genius than someone who is less attractive. Appearance is just one more useful characteristic for assessing how intelligent people are.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

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.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

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

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

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)