The Higgs Boson discovery and clamouring to be wrong.

I noticed something interesting about the discovery of the Higgs Boson. It wasn’t the discovery itself, it was the reaction of physicists to that discovery that struck me. In particular, so many of the scientists clamoured to be wrong. I shall explain.

A number of physicists who were interviewed expressed the thought, in various ways, that they hoped that the Higgs Boson turned out to have properties INCONSISTENT with the STANDARD MODEL. That is, they were clamouring to be wrong. They wanted their existing theory to be overturned and be shown to be incorrect by the new discovery. Indeed, the famed Stephen Hawking had bet good money that the Higgs Boson would not be discovered – because he hoped that science would be proven wrong in its present models, because, I inferred, science is at its most interesting, when it is wrong-footed. It is in such times, that great advances in understanding are made. So, it is, that all these physicists want to be shown wrong. They want, in short, to usher in times of uncertainty and discovery and new thought and experiment and theory. They want intellectual excitement in their lives. Were the Higgs Boson to be proved to be exactly as expected then none of these things would happen. It would be business as usual. The world would continue much as it had before and they would have no surprises to wake up to each morning. The physicists didn’t want that. They wanted to live in revolutionary times. They were tired of stasis.

I rather feel that many branches of science will, in time, be filled with scientists thinking much like those physicists. As science matures and ignorance recedes, there will be the growing feeling that there is much less left to understand – that no big revolutions lie ahead. Thus, it is, that science will become less interesting for its practitioners. I cannot say if science has already reached that stage, but it is not difficult to feel that it cannot be far off for some branches of science, if it is not already here.

Scientists want to feel intellectually alive. To do so, they need times of change and challenge. Only, therefore, discovery that they were wrong, would usher in such times, assuredly. It would show them that they need to go back to the drawing board and begin again. Such a thought, does not tire them, but invigorates them. They wish to really live the life of the mind and to breathe its fresh thoughts.

In a way, I hope that the physicists get their wish – because times of change are exciting for the spectator, too – as I now am to that branch of science. Just to witness novel thoughts and theories, is a pleasure for those who appreciate matters of the mind. So, let us hope that the discovery of the Higgs Boson has some surprises for us. Let us hope it ushers in a new and deeper, richer, more complex understanding of the world – and with it brings us new powers over nature, that, I hope, we use wisely.

Just as the discovery of the electron ultimately led to electronics, perhaps the discovery of the Higgs Boson will lead to technologies of mass manipulation – which would obviously be both powerful and exciting in their applications: flying cities, anyone? The possibilities are as endless as our dreams. I shall watch the tale of the Higgs Boson with great anticipation – and so, too, I hope shall all Mankind. It could portend a very different world, indeed.

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/11136175To 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.) 

Shocking news: Mermaids don’t exist...zombies neither.

Mermaids don’t exist, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). If that news disappoints you, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), announced, last month, that zombies don’t exist, either.

Now, for me, these news items were a little surprising – not, you understand for their content, but for the fact that they were thought necessary.

NOAA released their denial of the existence of mermaids to counter an upwelling of belief in them, after a recent Animal Planet TV show: “Mermaids: the body found”. Apparently, the computerized imagery showing mermaids, in this show, had convinced some viewers that mermaids were real.  In response, NOAA said: “No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found”.

So, too, the CDC denial of the existence of zombies presumably comes in the wake of a case in which a man, apparently high on some sort of drug, ate the face of a homeless man, in rather zombie like behaviour. The CDC declared: “CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms).”

Both of these announcements gave me great pause. It is true to say that they are enough, in themselves, to turn one’s world upside down. Of course, that is not because one might be disappointed to learn that mermaids don’t exist and that zombies are entirely fictional. It is quite simply because of the sheer implicit dumbness of the American people that would require these scientific bodies to make such announcements. How dumb must the population be, to be convinced of the existence of mermaids, or the truth of zombies? How dumb must these people be, to live in fear of a “zombie apocalypse”...as some apparently do?

We live in paradoxical times. Whilst educational opportunities, in general, may be better than at any other time in history, for the average person, we are also confronted with the sheer stupidity of many modern people. Somehow, despite the opportunity to learn and a considerable apparatus to do so, in almost all the world’s countries, people still insist on being dumber than your average brick.

Particularly worrisome about this is the fact that both these announcements came from American scientific bodies. This is very much suggestive that America, in particular, may be suffering from a surfeit of dumb people in its population. Could this be because American education has declined in recent decades? Is the average person leaving High School unable to distinguish reality and fiction to the extent that they need to be told, via official announcements that the stuff of mere stories – mermaids and zombies – do not exist in real life?

Modern civilization is upheld, not by the average person, nor by the believers in zombies, or mermaids, but by the intellectually gifted. Relatively few people know how the apparatus of science, technology, engineering, architecture and medicine work. It is on such people that the structure of society rests. Without them, society would be on the level of the zombie believers. That would be the true “zombie apocalypse”.

The situation led me to wonder why our scientific bodies don’t devote more energies to educating the public. What if, instead of having to deny the existence of fairy tales, they could use the mass media to educate the general public about science, technology and the world? The only problem with this, of course, is whether the mass media would even carry such stories.

Sometimes I do find myself agreeing with Ainan’s sombre view of the future of Humanity. He thinks we are in for a general decline in civilization, in the coming century. He sees signs of it in the general decay of public consciousness and in the disregard for the future, shown by our “leaders” (think, for instance, of the general inaction on global warming). He doesn’t yet know about the zombie/mermaid believers. I don’t expect it will fill him with any more hope to hear it.

I do hope Ainan is wrong on this point. I would like civilization to climb to ever higher levels. Yet, then I hear stories like this one. It is a worry.

Clearly, what is needed to address this is for education standards to be raised to the level at which, at least, people are able to distinguish reality and fiction. Is that too much to ask?

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/11136175To 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.) 

Tiarnan's philosophy of knowledge.

Yesterday, Fintan, 9,  taunted Tiarnan, 6, on his return from home.

“While you were out, we watched Shrek 4.”, he said, expecting an upset response, perhaps.

Tiarnan was unbothered.

“I don’t know what Shrek is.”, he said, calmly.

He paused a little as if considering the matter.

“If I don’t know about it, then it doesn’t exist!”, he concluded. For him that very much seemed to end the matter.

Fintan didn’t want to get into a, what seemed to him, pointless argument over the existence or non-existence of something he had seen...so he left it and did not respond.

I thought Tiarnan’s statement interesting. It could mean many things. He could be saying that if he hadn’t heard about it, Fintan must be making it up. Or it could mean that if he doesn’t know about it, then it won’t bother him not to see it – because he won’t know what he is missing. I am in favour of the latter interpretation. Either way, it is an interesting stance to take on missing out on something – and one which deflated Fintan’s attempt to make him bothered about it.

Not for the first time, I am struck by how much of interest can be found in the conversation of young children. One only has to listen carefully to hear many, often unique, conversational stances, ploys, understandings and come-backs. Each of our boys, has the tendency to utter odd lines, which stick in the mind. Though, as a personality, Tiarnan’s probably tends to the most bizarre of the three of them.

As I hear them speak in this way, I do wonder at what kind of adults will emerge from this period of intellectual and personal fermentation. Each of them promises to be at least a little different from the norm...and that can only be good.

Happy philosophizing Tiarnan!

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/11136175To 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.)