Marc Quinn: artist or plagiarist?

For many years, I have known something about Marc Quinn that others seem not to have noticed. The reason I know it, is because Marc Quinn was at the same Cambridge College – Robinson – as I was. We have, therefore, an overlap of social circles and personal contacts. Thus, word of my life and my thought, could have seeped very readily into his. In terms of degrees of separation: my acquaintances at Cambridge University would have known him directly. This is not much separation at all. Anything I said could easily have got back to him, even though I was never personally introduced to him.

I have just become aware of something darkly funny. Well, it is darkly funny if you know what I know about Marc Quinn. Mr. Quinn has recently been complaining that his work has been plagiarized by Swiss fashion house, Akris. Apparently, their designer, Albert Kreimler, strolled into the White Cube gallery where Marc Quinn’s flower paintings were on show – and felt himself so “inspired” by them, that he copied them directly and made clothes out of the designs.

Now, I have seen the clothes and I must say that they do look the same as the paintings, in places. He has basically imprinted Marc Quinn’s paintings onto cloth and called it “his” design.

So, this seems like a very clear case of plagiarism. Marc Quinn is rightfully riled by this. He was quoted as saying: “To take someone’s copyrighted material and turn it into a commercial product without permission is unacceptable. It is damaging to my ability to use my own images to make clothing. It is destroying potential in the future. If someone is inspired by my work and they go and do something completely different that is fine. If they take an image directly, it is not fine.”

My reaction to this statement of Marc Quinn’s might not be the same as yours. You see, I find it darkly funny. You may be wondering why I, who have, in the past, spoken out strongly against plagiarism should find Marc Quinn’s suffering darkly funny. Well, I have a very good reason: I have reason to believe that Marc Quinn is not the original thinker he would like his audience to think him. In fact, I have much reason to believe that he may very well be a plagiarist – though one who has thus far escaped public attention for his tendencies. We shall examine the reasons for my belief here and that will allow you to assess how probable it is that my belief about him, is true.

Many years ago, when I was at Cambridge University,very early on in my career there – probably my first year, which would have been 1986, I submitted my creative written works to Sylvia, the editor of the Bin Brook magazine, at Robinson College. The Bin Brook was the College magazine.

Sylvia had asked me to come around with my works to discuss them with her. I duly brought many works with me – in their original handwritten copies. I talked quite freely with her about my work for quite some time. There were several other people listening in her set of rooms, none of whom had been introduced to me. Sylvia was in her final year at Robinson College – and so those present were not familiar to me, being older and from the upper reaches of the College, in terms of time spent there. There were several males present, though. They were listening intently as I spoke.

At that time, I was quite naïve about people. I didn’t then know the basic principle that, unless an idea is strictly protected, it will be stolen the instant it is spoken of or written of, in public. This is something that happens every time an idea is shared – and is a principle I have learnt through real life experience of it in action.

I spoke a bit unwisely in that room. Firstly, I spoke of a story that I wished to submit, entitled “Smoguey the Sorcerer”. This story concerned a Wizard who had invented a device that could see a few minutes into the future. The punchline of the story was that the device foresaw his own death – the first time he tried it – and there was nothing he could do about it (I would need a copy of the story to give the full details). Now the most interesting part about the story was its origin. I explained to her that the story was based upon a drawing I had done, in which a wizard is looking into a mirror that foretells the future and sees in it, himself, dead, a few minutes hence. I explained that I had taken that image and transformed it into a different medium – the written short story. It was the same idea, represented in two different art forms.

Very oddly, several years later, I remember seeing a newspaper article about a “Marc Quinn” art work that had been entered for a competition, in which his art work consists of a written explanation of the transformation of creative works from one medium into another. He had basically, it seemed, written down my conversation and description of how I had composed that story and made it into “his” artwork. (At least I remember it as being called a Marc Quinn work).

That was somewhat annoying to see, for I knew, for certain, that the idea in that conceptual artwork had been voiced, on my tongue, in front of several unknown witnesses from my College (and Marc Quinn’s College), several years before.

I also told Sylvia of a poem that I would have liked to submit, but which I had left at home. The poem concerned a Vampire’s view of Humanity, in which I described the Vampire as seeing humans as being “heads filled with blood”. This wasn’t metaphorical – in my poetic world, the Vampire actually, physically SAW them as “heads filled with blood”.

Now, you should recall that Marc Quinn’s most famous work is that of “Self”, which is a self-portrait consisting of a, you guessed it, “head filled with blood”. It is Marc Quinn’s blood. However, it is NOT Marc Quinn’s idea. That idea came to me, by 1986 at the latest – and was communicated to everyone in that room, that day, in the same College as Marc Quinn. Marc Quinn’s most famous work, is not original. Marc Quinn did not have that idea, first – I did.
I do not know whether Marc Quinn was present in that set of rooms that day. No-one else was introduced. However, I do not need to know whether he was. The social distance between anyone in that room and Marc Quinn was most probably zero: they would all have known him, since they were old enough to overlap with his presence at Robinson College. Thus the distance between my words and Quinn, was just a simple conversation away – and that is the most distant Marc Quinn could have been from me that day. He might even have been present for all I know.

The way I think of it, is that it does not seem at all likely that Marc Quinn could independently come up with the same idea, when, in fact, both of us were at the same College and I had publicly discussed the idea of heads filled with blood, years before Marc Quinn actually made one in 1991. Occam’s Razor would suggest that the simplest explanation is that he heard what I said, directly or indirectly, that day – and registered the image as interesting and worth pursuing as a work of Art, in the future, when he could get around to it. The notion that TWO people at the SAME College, would INDEPENDENTLY come up with the SAME idea, without being aware of the prior work of the other, strikes me as absolute nonsense and unlikely in the extreme. It is far more likely that Marc Quinn is being derivative of my poem, than that he came up with it himself and it just so happened that it is the same idea.

There is an irony here, of course. I had discussed publicly how I had turned my drawing into a story. Then I mentioned my poem with its image of blood heads – and Marc Quinn, it very much seems, on hearing my words, or learning of them, reversed the procedure, and turned my poem into a work of Art.

Knowing what I do of that day I discussed my ideas too openly, I cannot believe in the idea of Marc Quinn as an original creative person. Two of the ideas I discussed, publicly, became early works of Marc Quinn: now how likely is that to have happened independently? Not very likely at all.

Then again, one should consider an interview Marc Quinn gave to a Cambridge magazine about ten years ago. In that, he said he was grateful that he had attended Cambridge because it “gave him ideas”. I bet it did. What he didn’t say is on whose lips those ideas were first heard. It is noticeable that as Marc Quinn’s career has progressed and he has moved away from his Cambridge years, he has become, in my view, much less creative. His works of recent years involve no real creativity, in my understanding of what creativity is. This, in itself, is good circumstantial evidence that his early works – which shone with creativity – were, perhaps, borrowed from more creative minds than his own. If not, why the definite decline in his creative work? I know he is older…but he is not that much older. If he was truly the originator of his early creative works, surely he would still show much of the same creative power? He doesn’t. However, I do remember the day I discussed and disclosed key ideas, later found in Marc Quinn’s work. I see no real explanation of this other than the simplest one: the blood head did not originate in Marc Quinn’s own mind, for it had been spoken of five years before, by me. The work about transformation also did not originate in Marc Quinn’s mind. The question now, is: if Marc Quinn appropriated ideas he heard at Robinson College, which originated in my own unguarded conversation – did his other works come from conversations with others? Which, if any of Marc Quinn’s works, truly originate in his own unaided mind? Are ALL his works “inspired” by others?

I ask this question for a reason. Truly creative people, habitually conceive of their own ideas, unaided by others: they look within, not without. They do not need others to feed on. However, those who call themselves creative, but who are much less so, than the former type, sometimes depend on “inspiration” from others. In these cases, they habitually pick ideas from the brains of others, tinker with them a little, then call them “their” own works. This breed of people really see themselves as creative. They do not understand that what they do is inherently derivative and dependent on the thinking of others. In my experience, the two types are distinct. Truly creative people would not only never need inspiration from others – they would also not take ideas from others: they would respect the ownership and origin of the ideas.

Which type is Marc Quinn: the true creative or the type who is always being “inspired” by others? If he is the true creative type then he must explain why I spoke of his core early ideas at least five years before they appeared in his works. Also if he is a true creative, he must explain why he appears much less creative now, than he did early on. If he is the type who is always “inspired” by others…then why is making such a fuss over the “inspiration” of Albert Kreimler of Akris? If his blood head originated in my speaking of it, five years before he made one…then is he not guilty of doing exactly the same thing that Albert Kreimler of Akris did?

I have held back from speaking of my recognition of Marc Quinn’s “Self” work, as being derived from my vampire poem, for many years. However, I have come to realize that I am harming myself by not speaking of it. It is not fair to me, to keep silent. Whatever the origin of the “Self” blood heads, it is clear that Marc Quinn did not get to the idea first: I did…by five years, at least. I also spoke of it in the same College as him, within easy social distance of himself. That is something that really needs explaining.

I was moved to write, finally, of this, by seeing Marc Quinn make such a fuss over Akris’ plagiarism of his work. Now, I know that Marc Quinn knows how it feels to be plagiarized. It is time, though, that people realized that perhaps Mr. Marc Quinn, too, has plagiarized work in the past. Indeed, it is not safe to think that his most iconic work: Self, is, in fact, his own idea. No-one who knew of my conversation that day, about my work, could possibly think that, if they were being reasonable.

Yet, even as I write this, I know that very few people will ever get to read this post and to come to the understanding that the origin of Marc Quinn’s early works needs to be questioned. So, I write knowing that it will do little to open people’s eyes. However, it is important that I make this statement, because to fail to do so, is to cheat myself. It should be known that the same ideas Marc Quinn used, were voiced by me, many years before he used them.

I don’t know Marc Quinn personally. I don’t know what he is like or whether he is a reasonable person, in any way. However, if he ever gets to hear of my concerns, here, I would invite him to reflect: how would he feel, if his own ideas, ended up in the works of another, who gained 100% credit for them, even though those ideas had been conceived of, by him, many years before (but publicly discussed). Recall that those ideas had been embodied in copyrighted works – all of them. Surely he would feel a bit like he does over the Akris affair. Well, imagine then how I felt to see the blood heads, from my poem, made into “Self”. It was a strange, saddening experience, for I knew that I had conceived that vision long before Marc Quinn made it physical.

Perhaps Mr. Marc Quinn should reflect on his own words and take his own advice: “To take someone’s copyrighted material and turn it into a commercial product without permission is unacceptable.”

Well, I didn’t give Marc Quinn permission to make use of my copyrighted material, in any way. Yet, inexplicably, my prior work, echoes his later work. Please explain that Mr. Marc Quinn.

Thank you for reading this quite lengthy post, everyone. I appreciate it.

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Varsity Newspaper: Unforgotten Words.

Varsity, is an independent student weekly newspaper, of Cambridge University. It has the distinction of being one of but three independent student newspapers in the UK.

Long ago, when I was a student at Cambridge University, I recall reading some quotes, from students about Cambridge. One of those quotes has stuck with me, ever since.

The, sadly anonymous student wit, was quoted to have said, words to the effect:

"Intelligent life in space? I would settle for intelligent life in Cambridge."

Sometimes, I felt like that about Cambridge, too. No doubt that is why I have never forgotten the expressed sentiment.

The funny thing is that that quote from Varsity is one of the few things that has stuck with me, from its pages. One of the others was a story about a former student who committed suicide, quite young, but that is another story...

Perhaps it is the profundity of the particular remarks, or stories, that endures, in my mind - or the ones that capture, aptly, the nature of life and place. All the rest is lost, as, perhaps, deemed inconsequential by my mind and so unworthy of remembrance.

I wonder who that wit in the Varsity newspaper was? Did they go on to have an interesting life? Did they find the intelligent people they sought?

If anyone knows who said that quote, please let me know in the comments below. Thanks.

Please note that the quote above may not have used the exact words of the Varsity wit, but the meaning is the same. That is just how I choose to remember it.

(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

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To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, 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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Cambridge University and the Twenty Year Delay.

Cambridge University is famous the world over. It has inspired an untold number of books and films set in its idyllic surroundings – yet, is it an inspiration to actually go there, study there and be there for three years? Does Cambridge University have a positive effect on a life?

I am moved to write of this now, because of a thought that is never too far from my mind: life is brief and sudden and the one thing none of us know about it, is its length. If I did not write of this, it might forever go unwritten and never be known. That is something I cannot let happen. So, today, I have decided to write of Cambridge University’s effect on my life path – well, one of those effects. I write knowing that very few people will read of it, here, and it will still largely go unknown, even so – however, it shall serve the purpose of making a record of these thoughts, so that they are to be found, in the world, should anyone choose to look for them.

I went up to Cambridge with such high expectation – and perhaps, in fact, that was part of the problem. I expected to be surrounded by enlightened, intelligent, lively minds with humane outlooks and understanding personalities, informed by premature wisdom. I thought they would be the best of the best. Sadly, they weren’t like that at all. There was relatively little of any of these characteristics present – or at least not to the degree I sought. They were not as bright as I had hoped and many tended to be rather conformist and intolerant of difference. In fact, they exhibited an exaggeration of the negative characteristics I had observed in colleagues at school: a narrowness of mind, that liked to exclude anything or anyone that didn’t match their rather limited range of expectations. Yet, I am not here to write of the students, even though many of them were disappointing, in some ways. I am here to write of the institution itself, and its staff.

Firstly, there is the legend that Cambridge has good teachers. I don’t know how this impression ever took hold, because very few of the lecturers I had, were decent teachers. Some of them were truly appalling. One, in particular, has never been forgotten. He “taught” Physical Chemistry, using blueprint style preprinted overheads, which he would flash up before a lecture hall filled with hundreds of people and point at a dense mass of mathematical equations and say: “As you can see, this implies that”, as he pointed to the top and bottom line, without explanation or introduction of what, actually any of it was about. He never gave any indication of what any of the symbols represented or what, in fact, was being communicated by the equations. At times like this, I would look around the lecture hall and see what I expected to see: a sea of incomprehending faces. If any of these people were to work out what was being discussed they would have to do all the work themselves. The lecturer was not going to be of any help at all.

I remember another occasion, years later, in a Philosophy of Science lecture when a very earnest and intelligent young man came to me after the lecture and asked: “Did you understand any of that?”

“Yes.”, I said, because I had.

He looked most discomfited, because it was clear that he hadn’t – even though I knew from conversations with him, that he was very intelligent.

What perhaps, I should have said, is that I approached his lectures with a very open mind and let all his words fall upon my mind. There they would link up and form meaning, or be pieced together as one great puzzle, until all became clear. The only reason I understood that lecturer's work was because of my own peculiar approach to listening, not because of any communicative skill on the part of the lecturer. Then again, of course, I may have been seeing my own meanings in his work and not the ones he had intended.

The truth was, of course, that the lecturer was extremely opaque and he did not talk in a way designed to convey understanding. He spoke as if in a private language, of immense complexity. Looking back, it is possible he had some innate disorder that affected his ability to communicate – because he was inherently very bad at it.

At Cambridge, bad lecturers were much more common than good ones – at least in the sciences. They were bad in two primary ways: they did not know how to communicate well – and they were very dull to listen to.

Those failings, however, are minor compared to the ones that bothered me more deeply about Cambridge.

There were two other aspects that troubled me. Firstly, whenever I showed creativity or enthusiasm, in my written work, I invariably was greeted with great hostility, by the academic staff. It appeared that creativity deeply offended them, perhaps by sparking some envy of some kind. I found it most unnerving to be welcomed so, each and every time I showed a creative response to an assignment. So unpleasant were the reactions I received, which varied from being reported, by “Dr Robert Lee Kilpatrick” for writing an essay of “inappropriate length” (for which I had to see a disciplinary committee!), to my essay being screwed up into a ball, by Dr. Barbara Politynska, who didn’t like its thesis. These were deeply scarring experiences. They made me understand that to express my inner thoughts, on any subject, would only be to court a hostile reaction. The effect on me was stark: I didn’t really want to be there anymore. This was a place that loathed creativity. It was a suffocating feeling, actually – for I could not, thereafter fully express what I thought, without knowing that it would be unwelcome. Cambridge, I learned, was a place for intellectual conformists – at least, at the undergraduate level, in the subjects I studied. Anyone with the merest spark of creativity, was definitely unwelcome.

Then there was another side: the plagiarists. Cambridge had those, too – both among the staff and among the students. One staff member, some of whose work was derived from something I said to him, was Nick J Mackintosh, a Psychology Professor, at Cambridge. He wrote an entire book based on something I said to him – of course, he didn’t acknowledge his original source, at all. I will tell that tale, in another post, to give it, its due. Another person who plagiarized some of my thoughts, appears to be Marc Quinn, the British “artist” – for some of his most striking works are simply embodiments of things I said to the editor of a magazine at Robinson College Cambridge (the Bin Brook), about my own work, in the presence of several other students who had not been introduced. Marc Quinn was a student at Robinson College (my college). Again, I will give the full tale another day, to give it fair space.

Anyway, the weight of all these experiences was truly disheartening. It did something I could never have expected it to do: it put me off pursuing a career in science, altogether. So, even though I had been a physicist at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Middx, before going up to Cambridge, after Cambridge, I wanted nothing more to do with science. So, for twenty years, I did just that: I avoided science and did other things.

Slowly, my feelings on the matter of science, healed. What really accelerated the healing was Ainan. Working with my son on his passion for science, reawakened my own and reminded me what I had so enjoyed before Cambridge put me off. So, after a twenty year delay, I returned to science and started doing research into Psychology. I am now a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at HELP University, Kuala Lumpur, focusing on research.

I know this: had I never gone to Cambridge, it is likely that I would never have been put off working in science. It is likely that there would never have been a twenty year delay before returning to science. Thus, going to Cambridge, far from “advancing my career”, as I had expected, cost me twenty years work as a scientist.

My experience at Cambridge, really colours my view, now, as to what is a suitable place for Ainan to study at. There is no way I would subject him to Cambridge, for instance. I look, now, not for brand names, in Universities – but for a friendly welcoming culture and good teaching. I see no attraction in any institution whose culture resembles the Cambridge I knew. In a way, this is a blessing, for guided by what I went through, I am now seeking to ensure that Ainan never has to suffer similarly. So, some good can come of it, at least, that is my hope.

(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

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, 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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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.

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The David Cameron Conservative-Liberal Coalition.

So, Clegg's big decision has been made. He has decided to form a coalition with the Conservatives, to rule Britain. Now, I like to refer to this as a Conservative-Liberal coalition, though most commentators, oddly, say Lib-Con. I think their version is peculiar, because they are putting the smaller party first.

Anyway, with reference to my last post, I can only say that the DEMOCRATIC choice has been made. Had a Lib-Lab pact formed instead, it would have meant the end of democracy in the UK. So, this alliance, unusual though it is as an alliance of right and left, in politics is, at least, the only democratic choice, available. It is what more people in the UK would have wanted.

I am relieved, therefore, from purely the point of view of one who likes to see the democratic choice of the people enacted, that this is the result. I do not, however, know whether this can work out. I hope it does, for the sake of the UK, for it faces many dire, primarily economic, problems.

As for Nick Clegg, well, my former contemporary at Robinson College, Cambridge is now the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK. That seems a rather surreal and unexpected result. The only sign of this present when he was in his late teens and early twenties, was a great personal self-confidence, a sense of superiority over others, which was readily evident, an easy charm, which he often deployed and a certain degree of personal energy. I would also note that he was not an entirely even tempered young man and did, on occasions, reveal a bit of a temper. However, I cannot know what was on his mind, on these occasions.

I hope it all goes well for Britain, this time. It has declined much, as a nation, in many ways, since I left. I hope this new coalition will lead to some kind of revival in its national fortunes.

I shall watch the situation with interest. Well done to all concerned, for making the democratic choice possible and not succumbing to the alternative, which would have been very unfair to the electorate.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, 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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Nick Clegg's dilemma.

Nick Clegg now faces a peculiar dilemma, one that is most unenviable in many ways. He is stuck between doing the right thing, by his principles, or the right thing, by his ambition. It seems likely that he cannot have both.

Nick Clegg's principles dictate that he should support the party that won the "most votes and most seats" in the General Election of Great Britain, 2010. Now, this would be the Conservative (Tory) Party. They won the most seats - at 306 - but not enough to be able to rule, successfully, without the backing of another party. So, Nick Clegg's principles state that he should support the Conservatives and come to some sort of coalition deal with them. That would satisfy what he says are his moral guiding principles, in this situation. However, there is a complication. Nick Clegg's ambition is to secure electoral reform, such that proportional representation is introduced into Britain. This would mean that the Liberal Democrats would play a much greater role in government FOREVER, were it enacted. At every subsequent election, the Liberal Democrats would secure a significant number of seats and are likely to have real power, forever after.

Yet, the party offering a referendum on proportional representation is NOT the Conservatives, but the Labour Party. The Conservatives have offered an "inquiry" on electoral reform, but, as yet, have not stated that they would offer a referendum on PR (though their stance may soften and change, which must be Nick Clegg's hope). What heightens the importance of this situation, is that the Liberal Democrats only have this one chance to secure proportional representation, because only in a rare hung parliament, do they have this bargaining power. This is the first hung parliament in well over thirty years - and Nick Clegg might be dead and gone before the next one.

Thus, Nick Clegg must choose between his principles or his ambitions. He must choose to back the Conservatives, and probably lose the chance of bringing in proportional representation (unless circumstances change) or he can choose his ambitions, and secure proportional representation through Labour's referendum.

The choice is even more complicated than it seems. You see, if Nick Clegg chooses to support the Labour Party (which lost around a 100 seats in the election), he would forever tarnish the name of his party, in many eyes, by supporting a party that has failed Britain. Should he turn his back on his principles, and go for his ambitions, Nick Clegg could destroy the Liberal Democrats.

Thus, Nick Clegg's choices are far from easy. With the Conservatives, he may abide by his principles, but alienate sectors of his own party. With Labour, he may succeed in his electoral reform ambitions, but ruin the reputation of his party, with the nation, for thrusting aside his principles and siding with a party that has singularly failed Britain, in recent years.

I hope Nick Clegg has a wisdom as great as his apparent charm - for now, what he needs, is more of the former, than the latter - though the latter may win over any objections within his own party, and without.

I should point out that I know Nick Clegg. We were at Robinson College, at Cambridge University together. We were exact contemporaries. However, I did not keep touch with him, after I left. It seems surreal, however, that one of the first people I met at Cambridge University (for he was one of the people present in my first few social gatherings at Cambridge), should turn out to be in a position of real power, in the UK, now. Nick Clegg must choose whom to back and thus, which party to empower to become Britain's government. Should he choose well, history will thank him for it. Should he choose poorly, history will damn him. So, he is faced with great opportunity and great peril. He has the chance, as few have, to write himself into the history books. He also has the chance to forever mar whatever good name he has.

Nick Clegg now faces a true and searching test of character. For it is character that will decide the fate of the UK and of Nick Clegg himself. Should he choose principles, over ambition, he will seen by history to have been a man of integrity. Should he choose ambition, over principles, he could very well permanently empower his party, in British politics, and himself, for the duration of his life - but lose the good will of history, for how it might judge his nature.

Now, cannot be an easy time for Nick Clegg. Nor is it an easy time for the UK. I hope Nick Clegg reflects carefully on his decisions and comes to the choice that is best for the country, and not just for his party, or self - for in the end, that is what politics should be about: serving the best long-term interests of one's country. Now, more than at any time, in living memory, Britain needs decisions of integrity from its politicians. I hope Nick Clegg proceeds, therefore, to be guided by a sense of what is right, for his nation and earns, thereby, the respect and thanks of posterity.

Best of luck Nick, on the days ahead, for Britain's sake.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, 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.

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 at http://www.genghiscan.com/

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

Is creativity encouraged in the classroom?

I ask this question because my own life supplies the answer.

Looking back over my schooling, my childhood and my education, I see something, in the young boy and man I was, that I have rarely seen in the students I have taught in the decades since. I used to approach every task given me, not from the point of view of what have other people thought about this problem, or question, but from what did I think of it? I always did my own thinking. It was not something I made myself do, it was something I did naturally, anyway. Indeed, I think I would have found it much harder to do it the other way, the way almost everyone else did it: with reference to the thoughts of others. I couldn't do that. I didn't think that way. I wasn't built to absorb the thoughts of others and make them my own, undigested and uninterpreted. Yet, that was the way of most people.

So, when given a question to answer, I would answer it in my own way. Typically, this would result in an original answer, because I was not influenced by other people's prior thoughts. Yet, how was this creativity received? Was it welcomed by my teachers?

Well, the short answer is sometimes, yes, but often no. Even the times when it wasn't spurned, it wasn't really respected.

Once, for instance, I gave the beginnings of a book I had written, to my favourite English teacher, Mr. Stephen Kerruish, so that he could read it and give me feedback. He smiled his customarily broad smile on receiving it, took it from me, and listened as I asked him to let me know what he thought of it. I would like you to guess what he did with it. Have a good think.

I expected Stephen Kerruish, being my favourite English teacher, and one whose opinion I valued, to read my science fantasy story and perhaps provide some helpful comment. I hadn't shown it to anyone else and I trusted his opinion. He was the only person in the world, I let read my work. Not even my family got to read it. Well, I asked him about it, a week or so later, but he hadn't read it yet. He just nodded, and smiled and didn't commit himself to anything. A few weeks later, I still hadn't heard from him, so I asked again. He nodded again, smiled and didn't commit. I decided to be patient. Weeks became months and soon the months stretched to the end of the year. He never got back to me about it - and he never returned it. In time, I forgot to ask him anymore and I never saw my work again. Now, it had been perhaps a sixth of a book, written very quickly, over a few days. So, its loss was, to me, at the age of 15 or so, quite a loss, indeed. I never got the chance to read it again and I never got the chance to finish it. Of course, it was not anywhere near as well written as my later works - but, you know what, I would give anything to have it back, again, so I could have the chance to read my teenage thoughts and once more, come to know the boy I had been.

I found Stephen Kerruish's response discouraging. Clearly, my creative efforts meant nothing to him. He didn't even value it enough to return it to me - even if he couldn't be bothered to read it. The saddest part of it was that I respected him as an English teacher and really would have liked his opinion. In asking for it, I lost my work, because I never saw it again. How disenchanting.

That was my best experience, with teachers, with regards to creativity. So, at best, I received a smiling indifference.

I had an art teacher called Jeremy Bournon, who used to do something very demoralizing whenever I discussed my art ideas to him. He would laugh at me. He would laugh in my face. Now, I understand what he thought was funny. He thought my enthusiasm for my ideas was funny, he thought my passion was funny. He found it hilarious that I should care so much about my ideas - so he laughed at me. What is more he would encourage anyone else who was present to laugh, too. So, I would end up being laughed at, for ideas which were, actually, very original and striking (so much so that they were typically plagiarized and used professionally by others, in later years). I remember those discussions well. Jeremy Bournon would begin with a smirk, and end in a mocking laughter - and any others watching, would join in the general amusement at my expense.

That was how creativity was encouraged at my school, King's College School, Wimbledon.

Jeremy Bournon had another habit, too. He was forever mocking me for my name. He would try a dozen different variations on it, in one conversation. He would never get my name right. He would pretend that he couldn't remember it and would pretend to struggle to recall it. He would refer to me with a long list of wrong names, finding my irritation at being misnamed, most amusing. Again, he would invite witnesses to laugh with him. So, everytime I met him, he would go through this routine. He never failed to find it funny - perhaps because I never failed to find it irritating. I would, of course, supply him with my correct name, and he would pretend it was news, to him, and stop the chain of misnomers.

Another interesting habit of Jeremy Bournon was that he never attended his own lessons. I took A level art, but this "teacher" never showed up to teach me. So, I had no art teacher for A level at all. I don't know why this was so. Perhaps the school, in all its administrative efficiency, had not informed him of when my lessons were supposed to be. Who knows...or maybe he just couldn't be bothered.

The only interest he ever took in my art was to present it at a public showing, without my permission, to make it look like he had been doing some teaching. The art works were cut and framed up (thus permanently altering their characteristics in a way I had not chosen). Furthermore, I was not allowed to take them home, despite repeated enquiries. After I had left the school, I asked for my art back and no-one seemed to know where it was. There were indications that, perhaps, it had been thrown out. So, there went all my painstakingly created adolescent work. It should be noted that I had a very detailed style in those days, and would sometimes spend months on a single work. What a waste.

Then there was Cambridge University, which I have written about before. I would just like to remind you though, of the incredible hostility I received, from the academic staff, whenever I handed in a creative essay. Staff guilty of this included, Dr. Barbara Politynska, a psychologist of little apparent intelligence, who crumpled up my essay, most intently, and handed it back, after ironing it flat again. In the margins she had written comments like: "Is this a moral thesis or an extract from the Sun?". She behaved as if she had been highly offended by what was, after all, nothing more than an analytical work offering a different, perhaps challenging, perspective on some established thinkers. When she handed it back, she HAD TEARS IN HER EYES and said I was "precocious". Now, why being precocious would make her angry and tearful I have no idea. It was a most disturbing experience for me.

I never saw her again. Nor did I have a supervisor for the rest of the year, in Psychology. It was most bizarre.

Another terrible supervisor was Dr. Robert Lee Kilpatrick, who refused to mark my essay, called its 22 pages, a "work of inappropriate length", made an OFFICIAL COMPLAINT ABOUT ME to my college, for writing it, blamed me for Barbara Politynska's disturbed personality problems - and I ended up being disciplined, in a special hearing, for my "misconduct". Oh, and he never returned the essay, so I could not benefit from all the work I had put into what amounted to a thesis.

What had I done wrong? I had written essays based entirely on my own thought - and not that of others. That is all. It was really perturbing.

From that moment forwards, I wanted nothing more to do with Cambridge "University". It had shown itself to be positively inimical towards anyone with any thoughts of their own.

This post has been deliberately brief. It is little more than a precis of the events in question, a suggestion of what happened. Much more detail would make it too long to read. However, the lesson of my own educational experience, at school and University is this: creativity is NOT welcome, in the present education systems, in the UK at least. Being creative won me indifference at best and a venomous, seemingly jealous hostility at worst. I was even punished for being creative, at Cambridge. Now, how is that for encouraging creativity in the young?

The best place for a creative person is out of the school and University system altogether. There is no place for the creative person in the education system I grew up with. "Education" might as well be spelt "ERADICATION", where creativity is concerned.

So, what advice can I give to a creative person? Firstly, don't expect a positive response from authority figures, of any kind, if you choose to reveal your creativity to them. Expect jealousy and consequent hate from the more insecure and competitive ones. Expect to be plagiarized. Expect to be marginalized, for it. Secondly, find a quiet place of your own, secure from the interference of others, where you can work on your ideas and creative products, yourself. Work in peace. Expect no help from others. When you are ready and feeling strong, you may show your work, to someone in a position to bring it to the wider world (a publisher, a gallery, a scientific journal etc.) but preferably not someone who would be in a position to feel competitive towards you.

It won't be easy, but this is, unfortunately, the only safe way to proceed, if you are creative and wish to build any kind of creative career. You have to be tough - and you have to be immune to the discouragement that you will, inevitably, receive along the way, from the insecure, the jealous, the spiteful, the incomprehending, or the simply indifferent.

Don't give up, however. If you have something to say, make sure you find a way to say it - but like I have said, don't expect the journey to that point to be a happy one or an easy one. It won't be.

Best of luck.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, 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.

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 at http://www.genghiscan.com/

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

Do you want to live forever?

Who wants to live forever? Do you? If people are honest with themselves, most people would answer "yes" to my question. Yet, since time immemorial this wish has co-existed with its hopelessness. To live forever, has been, for all this time, an absolute impossibility. Indeed, for most of the history of Mankind, to live to adulthood was unlikely enough, since most didn't achieve it. So, why do I ask this question, then? I do so, because we live in a time of change...a time in which it may soon, indeed, be possible to live forever.



At this point, I may have lost half of my readers. Well, to the half that remains, I would like to say this: thank you for being open-minded enough to read this far.



Now, as long term readers of my blog will know, I never broach a topic without much thought upon it and justification for my views. Today is no exception. You see what makes living forever less of an impossibility these days is the considerable progress made in understanding aging, the considerable proofs that it is possible to extend life (in a huge range of laboratory animals) and the nearness of drugs to achieve just that. Something else has changed too, in some quarters of the anti-aging world: the philosophy of how to approach the issue of preventing aging, debility and death. One such change is the proposals of Aubrey de Grey, a Cambridge University scientist, formerly a computer scientist, latterly a self-taught biologist with a PhD to prove it. Aubrey de Grey is, by the way, a most appropriate name, I think, for a man concerned almost solely with the prevention of aging! How serendipitous to find himself so named and so preoccupied! Anyway, Aubrey de Grey has proposed an approach to end the tyranny of aging and death. He calls this, quite attractively, SENS, (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence). What this means is, quite simply, the ways and means to stop you getting old...ever. His strategy is revolutionary in that it doesn't seek to understand aging, in the way almost all gerontological scientists are trying to do. No. He seeks, instead, to REPAIR THE DAMAGE done by aging. His contention is that it is much easier to repair the effects of aging, than to understand the underlying causes of aging and its mechanisms so as to be able to intervene to stop them in the first place. That problem, he admits, is far harder. By repairing the damage, rather than preventing it in the first place, Aubrey de Grey envisages a world in which periodic treatments would prevent people from getting old. They would, potentially, live not for seventy or eighty years, but for thousands of years. That is right, we could live for millenia. Some people indeed would never die. (There is a non-zero change of someone literally living forever if the safety of the environment increases and risk of death lowers over time, according to Aubrey de Grey's work).



Unfortunately, for us all, Aubrey de Grey's work needs funding. The SENS initiative is fairly radical and, in this world, radical ideas are slow to attract the funds they need, since most funding bodies prefer near term, safer options. However, there is something you can do, today to help. There is a competition running between SENS and a rival. They are in competition to see who can secure the most comments on a site. The winner receives $5,000 US dollars as a prize which will be used for research. The money doesn't sound like much...but it could be enough for a researcher to try out an idea and to put one more brick in the edifice that is SENS. A step forward will have been made - so it is worth it. The other side of it is that if enough people post comments in support of SENS (please try to think of something interesting to say...but it is OK if you don't...the comment itself is helpful), then other funding bodies may see that the cause is popular and come forward to support it.



To help research into stopping aging and help us all live longer, all you have to do is to go to this link and either sign in to the site and then comment - or, sign in to your GOOGLE account (the one that comes with GMAIL) and then register a comment. The latter is probably easier for many people.



http://www.facebook.com/l/65f50;3banana.com/m/0JQ/-kDPA_iEv7i



Please help SENS win this competition. You never know, it might be the step that prevents your own aging and gives you a much longer life...



Ask your friends to sign in and comment, too. Why not post the initiative on your facebook pages and get other people to sign in, too and comment. Let them all understand that it is a way to raise money for anti-aging research. It costs them nothing...but could benefit everyone.



Please let me know in the comments below, if you have made the effort to comment at SENS (and perhaps you could copy your comment below, to let me know how it is going). It would help me to know if this kind of initiative is of interest to my readers, since there are other things I could write about this area, in future, if people like it.



Thanks, in advance, for your help in supporting SENS rejuvenation research.


P.S: There is a time limit to the competition and I don't know when that is...so hurry. If I have posted too late...sorry, but I tried. Thanks.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Sacha Baron Cohen and the lost accent.

Sacha Baron Cohen, as most of you probably know, is an Englishman, who bills himself as a writer, comedian and actor. Now, I have reason to question one of those billings, as anyone with an attentive ear, would have.

Last night, I saw Sacha Baron Cohen on the Conan O'Brien show. Amazingly, we actually get this show in Singapore, on one of the many cable channels available. It is quite fun to watch since Conan O'Brien manages to entice a wide variety of interesting people on to his show. Not all of them are A listers, but many of them are, perhaps, more interesting because they are not. Sometimes, it is good to watch people who are less famous and less familiar, since they may bring something new.

Sacha Baron Cohen appeared, last night, as Bruno. He was introduced as Bruno and interviewed as Bruno. He arrived wearing silver trousers and a dark sleeveless top. He was, as expected, rather camp. Sacha Baron Cohen, as Bruno, proceeded to "act" in character, throughout. He made jokes and observations as Bruno. He interacted as Bruno. He pretended to an attraction to Conan O'Brien, as Bruno. This was all very well, if not very convincing. At no time, for instance, could anyone watching Sacha Baron Cohen, as Bruno, conceive the understanding that this was a "real" person. He didn't come across as a real person, at all. He came across as a rather overdone caricature of a gay man, given to an excess of flamboyance. This, in itself, was rather disappointing, since I had understood that the whole point of Sacha Baron Cohen's work was to fool people into believing that his creations were real, so as to secure, from them, reactions to this supposed reality. That, however, was not what was happening on the Conan O'Brien show. What was happening was that an Englishman of rather limited acting ability was attempting to portray what he thought to be an over the top gay Austrian.

Now, why do I say "rather limited acting ability"...well, quite simply because at no time was he able to create a coherent reality for this character, Bruno. The actions of the character were not done convincingly, in any way. In fact, they came across as a painting of a gay man "by numbers"...meaning he was going through a routine: "now I do this, then I say this, then I do that..."...it just felt lifeless, like a man going through empty motions, that had no meaning for him. The actions did not seem motivated by any genuine inner drive, at all. This was not a gay man expressing himself, rather loudly, on a tv chat show. It was an Englishman giving a very slipshod caricature of his idea of a gay man, in such a way that none of the individual actions were convincing and the whole just did not hold together, in the least.

I was very disappointed, since, after all the hype surrounding this man (Sacha Baron Cohen)...I rather expected a higher degree of acting skill.

Now, I must come to the real failing of Sacha Baron Cohen's portrayal of Bruno: the accent. Bruno is supposed to be a young gay AUSTRIAN man...and so, presumably, he is supposed to speak with an Austrian accent. Yet, that is not what I heard, last night, on the Conan O'Brien show. The accent was only very occasionally remotely akin to an Austrian's. Most of the time, Bruno - an "Austrian" - spoke with an upper crust ENGLISH accent. His accent kept slipping in and out of a well spoken English accent. Presumably, given his Cambridge University background, that well spoken English accent is, in fact, Sacha Baron Cohen's own. When his accent wasn't clearly an English one, it was most often not an Austrian one, either: it was a confused mix of many influences that just didn't convince one that it was from anywhere in particular.

A talent for accents is not universal among actors. However, almost all actors are able to be consistent with the voice that they use, for a role. Sacha Baron Cohen's biggest failing was not that he can't do an Austrian accent (he can't...he really can't), but that he can't keep his accent consistent. Every few words, he would slip into a different accent. His voice was just all over the place.

The fact is, that if Sacha Baron Cohen's performance on Conan O'Brien had been an audition for any acting job, there has ever been, in the history of acting, he would NOT have got the job. His performance was simply too poor, too amateurish, too hammy and just plain unfunny to persuade any casting director, or director, at any level, to give him a job. The funny thing is, of course, that Sacha Baron Cohen has a job...Bruno. He is just not doing it very well. In fact, he is doing it very badly.

The most embarrassing thing about the Conan O'Brien show, for Sacha Baron Cohen, was that he was followed, on the show, by a real actor. By this I mean that the actor could actually act. The difference between them was stark. He was an English actor from True Blood, a show presently popular in the US. He did something that made Bruno look excruciatingly bad: he used accents, perfectly. He slipped from a standard English accent, to a Cockney, to a Somerset accent, to a Deep Southern accent from the US...all in moments. Each accent was absolutely convincing, stable, didn't drift, was perfectly accurate in its rendition and seemed to be accompanied by a character, too. The voices were different, interesting and truthful. There was just one thing he could have done to make Bruno look even worse: an Austrian accent. Thankfully, for Sacha Baron Cohen, he didn't do that...though, if he had been mischievous, he could and should have done.

I think the problem with Sacha Baron Cohen is that he is too successful. No-one is telling him: "Hang on Sacha, but you know that accent you have got, is just not working...in fact, I am not sure what accent it is that you have got. You should get a voice coach or failing that, don't bother with the accent."

No-one, basically, is telling him the truth. The truth is, he is able to think up characters that have some comic potential. However, those characters are sometimes beyond the range of his abilities as an actor to portray effectively. Bruno, for instance, appears, from the evidence of that interview on Conan O'Brien, to be way out of Sacha Baron Cohen's range. From my point of view, he failed in every respect with that character (except possibly the costume design, which was probably someone else's work). Thinking up an interesting character is not enough, if you are going to be the performer of it: it has to be within the range and ability of the performer. An Austrian accent is not within Sacha Baron Cohen's ability range. In fact, the stability and conviction of any accent he gives, is doubtful, given the performance last night. Thus, Sacha Baron Cohen should steer clear of doing accents. He shouldn't even try. Then he should consider the range of actions required of him, by the character: he should ask whether he can actually perform those actions convincingly. Bruno was not a convincing gay man, in many ways. Thus, if he was ever intended to be convincing, he failed to do so.

I note, from articles written about him, that Sacha Baron Cohen is often praised for "keeping in character"...well, maintaining an accent is part of keeping in character, and this Cohen was unable to do for more than two or three seconds, in last night's interview. So, it would seem that there is a difference between the PR surrounding Cohen and the actual abilities of the man.

It will be interesting to see what Sacha Baron Cohen does next. If it involves accents, I hazard to think just how unconvincing it will be. We will see.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Lee Kuan Yew on Assortative Mating.

Lee Kuan Yew is fond of graduates. For him, a graduate is a superior being to be courted. Recently, he expressed his views on the assortative mating of graduates, in a televised interview.

Lee Kuan Yew said that graduates should only marry graduates and that one should not form a graduate, non-graduate partnership. For him, such a partnership would jeopardize the chances of giving rise to "graduate children".

It seems clear that Lee Kuan Yew thinks that the state of being a graduate is somehow inherited. I feel that this comes from a misunderstanding of what, exactly, is inherited. Being a graduate is an ACQUIRED characteristic. One is not born a graduate. To become a graduate one must interact with the educational bureaucracy for a certain number of years, suppress one's individuality to a greater or lesser extent (depending on the system), conform to the rules and generally do what is expected of one, for a set number of years. At the end of this period, if you have been a good (conformist) boy or girl, you will be awarded a piece of paper that has social meaning: that is you are a "graduate" - and non-graduates can thereafter look up to you in awe of your greatness.

Now, that is all very well, but the fact that being a graduate is an acquired characteristic, based on many factors - money for educational fees, not being dyslexic (it is more difficult to be a graduate if you are one), being motivated by examinations, finding the courses interesting enough to study, hard work for some, talent for others etc. etc. - means that being a graduate is not a very good marker for intelligence, which is, I assume, Lee Kuan Yew's real concern.

Lee Kuan Yew wishes graduates to marry only graduates to create a super class of smart people. However, there is a problem with this. University degrees are not directly inheritable - that is Lamarckian inheritance (that of inheriting acquired characteristics) does not apply. Just because your mum and dad are graduates of Cambridge University, that does not mean that you, too, will be a graduate of Cambridge University. It is not something that can be inherited. If LKY believes that it is inheritable directly, then he is making a Lamarckian error (belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics). What can be inherited, however, to a great degree is intelligence and various aspects of character. These inheritances can predispose one to become a degree holder one day - but there is no guarantee that this will be so - since it depends on many factors that have nothing to do with intelligence. There are some very smart non-graduates (I know plenty) and there are some VERY stupid graduates (I know plenty). Being a graduate doesn't mean you are smart, it means that someone else is stupid enough to give you a degree.

At the heart of LKY's contention is that people should marry their own kind. This is, actually, an age-old trend in humans. People naturally tend to seek out others with whom they have many things in common. So, in urging this, LKY is just stating what people tend to do anyway.

I think, however, that he is making a fundamental error in categorizing graduates as superior to non-graduates. That is simply not so. A graduate is just someone who has conformed to an education system long enough to actually be given a piece of paper by it. It does not mean that they are more special than someone who decided NOT to conform to the education system long enough to receive a piece of paper. In fact, the NON-conformist could be SUPERIOR to the conformist graduate. Education in Singapore is a case in point. I have worked within the system and it is strongly conformist. I think that it is likely, in such a system, that many who conform to it are inferior to those who escape from it. Truly smart people do not conform readily in their thinking - they escape to make their own territory.

People are better judges of whom they should marry than LKY is. Lee Kuan Yew is using the short-hand of "graduate" to decide that people are of sufficient merit to marry. Well, many graduates are dull people. A man or woman seeking a partner can see that. They can decide for themselves that "dull graduate A" is not as marriage worthy as "interesting non-graduate B" - and they can select B. What they may actually be selecting FOR is the quality of genuine intelligence that LKY seeks anyway. A person who looks at another carefully will see more about them, in terms of intelligence and character, than any piece of paper could tell them. Sometimes, the non-graduate will be smarter and more interesting - and better in many ways - than all available graduates. In such circumstances, it would make sense to REJECT the graduates and marry the non-graduate.

I find it funny, in a way, that LKY should be so concerned to create brighter people in Singapore. You see, from our own experience, we have learnt that Singapore doesn't do all that is necessary to look after the bright citizens it DOES have. We had to struggle very hard to get the right educational provisions for our son, Ainan. It took a year and a half of wasted time to get him a Chemistry lab, for instance. There is NO POINT AT ALL in bringing more bright children into the world of Singapore, if the ones it already has, have to struggle to get the resources they need to optimize their talents. I think Lee Kuan Yew is not fully aware of how his nation actually behaves towards its brightest children. We had to talk to many, many, institutions before we got any positive response. Generally speaking, institutions here will do nothing out of the ordinary, for an extraordinary child. No-one wants to make any exception. Furthermore the Gifted Education Programme is mis-named, for they do very little to help the gifted child in any real way (they talk a lot, study the child like a lab animal - then do little).

So, I would advise LKY: first ensure that your country actually welcomes bright children, before you worry about how many of them you have.

Note: I graduated from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences. I don't consider it a fruitful time. Nor did I meet anyone at Cambridge that I considered marriage material: they weren't up to my standard, at all. (They were too conformist). So much for the "marry a graduate" theory.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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The failure of the Copernican Revolution.

The Earth goes round the Sun...right? Everyone knows this don't they? That's where the concept of "year", comes from, doesn't it?

Well, not everyone knows this. In fact, in a recent survey ONE FIFTH OF AMERICANS THOUGHT THAT THE SUN GOES AROUND THE EARTH. I read it with less shock than others might feel. Why? Because I have met this particular form of ignorance, before.

When I was at Cambridge, there was this girl. She had rather a pleasant personality and was the kind of person who seemed to mean well to all. I shan't name her, here, lest she be embarrassed, however. One day, we had an argument - a celestial one. Somehow the subject of the Earth's motion through space had come up. I detected in her what I thought was a misunderstanding, so I pointed out that the Earth goes around the Sun. She laughed at me. "No it doesn't...the Sun goes around the Earth! You can see that it does."

I could see that she thought me rather stupid. I insisted that the Earth went around the Sun...but she would have none of it. Her naive observations that the Sun rose and set in its motion through the sky, were levelled at me, again and again as proof that the Sun, indeed, went around the Earth. There was nothing I could do to persuade her otherwise. The life work of Nicolaus (or Nicolas) Copernicus (February 19, 1473 – May 24, 1543) had been in vain. Almost four hundred and fifty years after he had demonstrated, conclusively, that the Earth orbited the Sun (that the Solar system is "heliocentric", or Sun-centred), this Cambridge Undergraduate still hadn't got the message.

Do you know what is really funny? She went on to get a first class degree in Modern Languages. She was, by this measure, the "brightest of the bright"...yet still she did not know that the centre of the Solar system was the Sun, and that the Earth, like all the other planets, orbited it.

She was, I suppose, a perfect example of the problems of the "two cultures", written of by C.P. Snow. She knew her languages, but she knew nothing of science.

Yet, I should thank her, really. You see, I never fail to be flabbergasted when I think of her lack of understanding of such a basic issue. She has, therefore, given me permanent access to the emotion known as "flabbergast".

So, it was most evocative when I read that one fifth of Americans are ignorant of the same issue as my first class Cambridge degree holding friend.

It is sobering to realize that the Copernican revolution is still not over. Copernicus has yet to win over even the developed world to his view that the Solar System is heliocentric. Sixty million Americans would react as my Cambridge friend did - by laughing at anyone who suggested that the Earth orbits the Sun.

Copernicus' seminal book, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), was published in the year of his death. Legend has it that he was given a copy of it, on his death-bed, while in a stroke induced coma. He is reputed to have awoken from his coma, noted the presence of his book - and passed away peacefully.

Would he rest so easily if he knew that almost half a millenia later there are still people, in the developed world, who do not believe that the Earth goes around the Sun?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Quality of memory: incidental knowledge

Ainan is very focussed on his scientific interests yet, surprisingly, he takes note of other things, too, in passing.

William James, the great 19th century American pioneer in the nascent science of Psychology made an interesting observation, on the types of memory people tend to have. He conceived of an understanding of great men: "When both memory and philosophy combine together in one person, then indeed we have the highest sort of intellectual efficiency. Your Walter Scotts, your Leibnitzes, your Gladstones, and your Goethes, all your folio copies of mankind, belong to this type."

Let me explain the background to this remark. This was given in his "Talk to Teachers" on memory. He observed that some people had the ability to recall random information that they were presented with. Their minds were "wax to receive, marble to retain". He further noted that, sometimes, such a great memory was found in a person otherwise ungifted in the "philosophic" department. By this he meant, yes, they have great memories - but they do not also possess high levels of intelligence. Today, we might call such individuals savants or the like - for he seems to be referring to such cases, as we would understand them, today.

However, he further noted that all combinations of types of mind were possible. Sometimes a person was both gifted in memory and in philosophical power of thinking. It is this type that he thinks of as great men - and used the geniuses above as examples of it. He further believed that such a combination was necessary for the highest accomplishment - the greatest of men (women not being afforded much opportunity in his day) tending to exhibit both faculties, to allow the necessary mental efficiency to accomplish their goals.

He clarified his understanding of memory by conceiving of the idea of "desultory memory" - this was the capacity to remember anything and everything without effort (his "wax to receive, marble to retain".) It is difficult for most of us to remember random information - but he noted that some people were adept at this, along with whatever other faculties they possessed.

Incidentally, "desultory" has a fascinating history as a word. It ultimately comes from the Latin, desultorius, the adjectival form of desultur, meaning "hasty, casual, superficial" but applied to mean "a rider in the circus who jumped from one horse to another while they are in gallop,". It therefore captures the ability of some people to be fluid in memory, too - to jump from one thing, to another, effortlessly.

So, in William James thinking, the most helpful memory, would be a desultory memory - one that allowed anything and everything to be learnt, incidentally, without really trying. Such a person would end up with a broad knowledge of just about everything, they encountered in life.

Now, back to Ainan.

This morning, Ainan was watching the Guiness Book of World Records on television, as I passed by. On the screen was a quiz about footballers and the question was: "Who is the highest paid footballer in the world?" There were three choices: David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and a third that eludes me because, frankly, I wasn't paying much attention.

I noted something odd, however. As Ainan sat in front of the television, he pointed at the Zinedine Zidane and said: "Zidane". That, for me, was strange, because I knew, for certain, that Ainan had no interest whatsoever in football. We had taken him to try it once and he couldn't have been less enthused. I have never seen him watch a football match, either - so it was more than a little surprising that he should feel that he knew who was "the highest paid footballer in the world." I thought, to myself, that it must be David Beckham, so I paused in my journey about the house and waited for the television to answer the question.

At last the answer came: "Zinedine Zidane is the highest paid footballer in the world!" It then went onto to say that he had the not inconsiderable salary of $66 million US Dollars a year.

That really surprised me: Ainan had been right. This then called to mind, for me, the remark about desultory memory made by William James that I had first read of while reading irrelevantly at Cambridge University, two decades before, a text that would do me no good whatsoever in the exams ahead (they are the best texts to read, for then you might learn something new!)

It seems, if this example is any guide, that Ainan possesses that element of desultory memory that William James so prized. His sole true interests are scientific - and he has no interest in football - yet still he knew who the highest paid footballer in the world was.

The real surprise here is that, after 7 years of being his father, and observing him first hand, daily, that he is still able to surprise me. That points to something else: he is constantly evolving and growing. He is what he is - but he is also becoming. To be able to see that growth is one of the great pleasures of fatherhood (or indeed, parenthood).

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eight months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and one month, and Tiarnan, eighteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The problem with Universities

Universities are often not the havens of academia that they are portrayed to be in movies and literature. There is a very profound problem with many of them.

A University may be of two kinds, in the pure sense: a teaching University and a research University. From what I have seen, it is often the latter kind of University that wins attention and praise and fame, and for which students all over the world compete for admission. I went to Cambridge University - a great research University. However, all research Universities suffer from a very human problem. The staff are researchers, not teachers.

At a research University, it is usual for the staff to have mixed duties: they have their research and they have their teaching duties. You might think that this could create a situation in which students benefit from "cutting-edge" thinking from their famous researcher/Professor. This is usually not the case. What is more common is that the famous researcher type is really only engaged by his research work and couldn't care less about his - or her - students. That was most certainly the impression left on me by my University. The research staff really were only concerned about their research: students were in most cases seemingly regarded as an inconvenience - a distraction from the purity of their research.

Thus, what is a student to do? Well, I would, if I had my life again, ignore all famous research Universities for an Undergraduate or First Degree. I would go somewhere that had, at its heart, a love of teaching (if such a University could be found). I would not even be tempted to attend somewhere famous for its research - for such a place would tend to ignore its student base, for its own inward looking research work.

Perhaps a new norm should be established. Students should attend specialized teaching Universities for their first degrees - and only later, should they go to a research University - when they are doing a research degree. No-one should have to suffer the experience of being ignored by research staff intent on their personal research, at the expense of their teaching duties. That is a terrible experience that usually destroys the student's love of learning. So many people that I know who went to famous research Universities were very disappointed with the experience. It often destroyed the lives they had planned, in a very profound way.

So, if you have a bright child, I would suggest that you look beyond the famed Universities. Sometimes the less famous, more teaching based institution may be a far more welcoming place, than a place that has built its reputation on research, but not on teaching.

In many ways, this is one of my more important posts.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and no months, or Tiarnan, seventeen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

NUS High School: the academic staff

I have learnt something unusual about the National University of Singapore (NUS) High School. All of its staff are University Professors.

Now, clearly the intention in arranging for all of the staff at the school to be University academics, is that they would bring to bear a deeper knowledge of their subject to the benefit of their students. Gifted students would be less likely to bump into the knowledge ceilings of the staff - or at least, they would not be so readily reachable, as in the case with a typical teacher.

However, there is a problem, that I foresee. Would a staff of academics be well-equipped to teach to school age children? The needs of the children differ from those of student age, in that a different approach may be required to teach them. Academic staff may find it more difficult to relate to school age children than they would to the usual student they are accustomed to.

Yet, I don't yet know the situation in NUS High from experience. It might work very well. The Professors here, in Singapore, may actually be good teachers able to reach children of all ages. I don't know - but I hope so.

It wasn't the case when I went to Cambridge University, in the 1980s. There the academics were very good at their subject, but had neither training nor flair for teaching in general. It was a very rare Cambridge academic who had any interest or ability in teaching. It was almost universal to have lectures presented by academics whose real interest lay elsewhere: their research. The students appeared to be an inconvenience to them.

I was very disappointed in my experience of Cambridge University - and it all came down to the undeniable fact that the staff were specialized academics, not teachers, at heart. At the core of it, they simply didn't want to teach. At least, that is the impression that was left with me, after three years there.

There were exceptions. There were rare wonderful teachers with a passion for communicating their subject to others. Above all of these, in my memory, was Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, a Classicist, working in the History of Science, in particular the Ancient Greeks. He was almost alone, in my experience, in making any effort to communicate directly with his students. He was warm, welcoming, engaging, interesting, and more importantly, interested. If the Professors at NUS High are like Professor Lloyd, it will be a great experience for Ainan and a great asset to Singapore. I hope, however, that they are not like so many other Professors were at Cambridge: uninterested, self-absorbed, poor communicators and, in some cases, frankly lazy.

My feeling is that the Professors at NUS High will take their teaching roles more seriously than those at Cambridge did. That is my hope. Should that not be the case, I will let you know. But, given the importance of education in Singapore, and the relatively high status of teaching, here, compared to its status in the UK, I rather think they will be more motivated to teach well, and more proud of doing so.

Here is a final thought. All of the staff at NUS High are Professors. Students at NUS High may take any number of University modules that they wish. Is that not, in effect, then, a University for kids?

(If you would like to read more about Ainan, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and three months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Is education necessary for success?

I am struck by the obsession with education and degrees evident on many boards and sites devoted to giftedness. There is this underlying idea that gift should be manifested as "qualifications" and that, somehow, the more of these one garners, the higher their level, the better it is. They are somehow a kind of medal, or badge of merit. Yet, are such qualifications actually necessary for success, even now, in the modern world?

I would say not. I am thinking of a particular individual, related to me, who grew up in a time and a country when educational opportunities were not readily available. He had no education past elementary school and went into the world equipped with just reading, writing and arithmetic and a smattering of national history and native language (plus English). Many reading this and looking on the prospect of facing the world with so little educational ammunition might assume this background to be a recipe for failure. Not so. He is one of the most successful people I know. He began work as a child of fourteen, learnt his trade, started a business, learnt all aspects of that business, including all necessary law and details of accountancy, and all professions as they related to his chosen business area - and flourished. He is far better off than any of the highly educated lawyers and accountants and other professional suppliers who work for him, on his various projects. He has financial freedom. He enjoys what he is doing. He is making a real, tangible contribution to the world - all without a formal education to speak of.

Could the same background lead to a thriving success today? I believe so, for education is not intelligence. Education is not giftedness. Education does not mark a person as special. Education is a collection of received ideas, the opinions and thoughts of others. Being educated does not mean that you are truly capable of doing anything new or interesting or of being a "success". A man or woman without an education may be more than capable of making their way in the world, in a productive, creative, successful manner. Whether they do or not depends not on what they have been taught, but on their own ability to think for themselves. A truly gifted person should be able to make a success of themselves without a formal education. For a truly gifted person is able to work things out for themselves and learn how to do something from scratch. There is only one caveat to this observation: many professions and types of job, exclude people on the basis of whether or not they have a particular "educational qualification". This is a shame, because it is my observation that the educated man or woman may be no better than the uneducated one, at a particular role or task, or indeed may be far less competent - it all depends on the individual and their gifts.

I think that a society that orders itself too much on the basis of qualifications is one that is setting itself up for being second rate. Why do I believe this? Because many gifted people may not have had the opportunity to obtain a particular educational qualification, even though they are more than capable of doing so, and would be excluded by a society that paid too much heed to qualifications. Singapore is one such society: everything here is about paper qualifications - the entire edifice is built on them. I believe, from observation, that they are profoundly in error in being so obsessed with pieces of paper. Personnel departments in this country, do not look at people, they look at paper. In this manner, they under-utilize many good people, and overlook much talent. It is unbelievable to say it, but Singapore is a country where one can't even be accepted as an artist, without a degree to prove it. It never occurs to them that one might need to look at the art in question, to determine how much of an artist someone is.

What is the answer, for those of gift but without the relevant qualification? If the opportunity to obtain the qualification is not there, going into business for oneself, in a particular line, is the most productive response. Those who are gifted, but untutored, may succeed far beyond those who have an education, but less of a gift. They need only ignore the requirements of the society around them, and go into business for themselves. Just like my relative did - and won.

I should point out that I have received an education up to and including a Master's Degree at Cambridge University. I would also like to point out that everything of real value that I learnt in all that time, was something I taught myself.

(If you would like to read of my scientific child prodigy son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and one month, or his gifted brothers, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html. I also write of child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)