Of responsibility and humanity.

The level of a civilization may be determined by the degree of care people have for each other. By that measure, Great Britain is in severe decline.

Last night, Scotland was hailing three 18 year old students as heroes, for saving the life of a drowning woman. Graham McGrath, Rosie Lucey and Rhys Black spotted a 37 year old woman in the water near the Albert Bridge in Glasgow. She was crying out for help and getting lower and lower in the water. She was obviously drowning. Lifebelts had been thrown towards her, but she was too far from them, to reach them. This lady had mere moments to live.

Luckily, one would have thought, the police had reached the scene. I say "would have thought" for a reason. What do you think the Strathclyde police did when faced with a drowning woman? Have a good think.

Well, they decided to hold back the crowd. Apparently, saving a drowning woman is "not our responsibility...it is for the fire and rescue service to go into the water."

Wonderful. So, what do we have here? A variation on: "That is not my department".

So, the Strathclyde police force think that because jumping into the water to rescue drowning people doesn't fall into their job description, but is the job of "fire and rescue" that they should stand idly by and watch a woman drown? The fire and rescue service had not reached the scene. By the time they did, this woman would be dead. But what did the police force do? Control the crowd (because that IS in their job description).

Fortunately, three students, who didn't have jobs or job descriptions to limit their behavioural choices, decided that, since no-one else was doing anything to help her, that they would save her. Graham McGrath and Rosie Lucey, jumped into the water, swam out to the lady and pulled her back to the bank, as far as they could. Mr. Rhys Black then waded in to help them pull her out.

Now, the formerly drowning lady's lips were blue and her tongue was white. This is not surprising since, according to Mr. Rhys Black, she had been under the water for two minutes. She was in dire need of CPR.

Who do you think stepped forward, at that moment, to save this woman's life? Was it the policemen, all of whom were, no doubt, trained in CPR? No. The students set about performing CPR on the woman. At first they could find no pulse, no sign that she still lived - but they persisted. After a few minutes of CPR, she gurgled and a large amount of water came out of her mouth. She was alive.

The lady was taken to hospital where she is now recovering. Throughout all of this, the policemen took no steps to save her life.

Please reflect on that. Reflect on what it says Britain has become. Somewhere, along the way, it has lost its soul. Once upon a time, the lowest policeman would have done his utmost to save that woman. Indeed, once upon a time, anyone in the land, would have jumped in, to stop her from dying, unaided. Not anymore...now, several members of the police force and a WHOLE CROWD of onlookers, can stand idly by, curious to see, perhaps, what a drowning person looks like - but NONE of them tried to help - until three young students, perhaps too young to have been indoctrinated by the national indifference, jumped in to save her life.

Once people were guided by their basic humanity, in their conduct with others. They made moral choices, based on moral centres, built up through a life's experience of what is good and right and moral. Now, however, we have "public servants" without any heart or soul at all. They are guided, not by a common inner morality, but by RULES and REGULATIONS and JOB DESCRIPTIONS. They are no longer human. They have become a variety of fleshy automata.

Any policeman who can stand by and watch someone drown just because it is not in his "job description" and is not his "responsibility" therefore, is inhuman. Life is the most precious gift any of us have. To stand by and watch someone lose that...lose EVERYTHING, just because nothing in their job description says they have to save her, is beyond belief. Those policemen have forgotten the most basic ideal of their profession "to serve and protect". To stand by, whilst a lady drowns, neither serves nor protects. It, in fact, shows an indifference to the value of human life, an attitude of cold uncaring for one's fellow humans, that is quite beyond belief.

When I was younger, the news papers were filled with stories of the heroism of police officers, fire officers and other public servants in the course of their duties. Remarkable acts of courage were quite commonplace. Now, we have, in their stead, a regulated indifference to human life - a police force that will first check its rule book, it regulations and its job descriptions, before intervening on the behalf of another human life imperilled. This just cannot be right. Worse, perhaps, than active evil, is passive indifference. At least the evil man acts out of some kind of inner principle, or motive force - all those policemen were acting out of, was a self-justified cowardice. The most likely underlying truth of the situation is that not a one of those policemen wanted to jump into the water, to save her, lest they might endanger themselves. So, what did they do? Checked their rule books for a reason to GET OUT OF DOING SO. Their job description didn't include such tasks - so they wouldn't do it, even though a woman was busily dying whilst they discovered that they didn't have a conscience to argue with.

I don't know why those policemen became policemen. I know this, though: it cannot have been for the reasons that policemen, of the past, used to do so. Policemen of earlier generations, genuinely seemed to have a certain nobility about their role in society: they were there to fight crime, protect and serve the people - and generally do what good they could, to ensure that the nation was safe to live in. Any policeman of earlier generations would, most definitely, have jumped in to save her. Not now...now they would rather not get their clothes wet: after all what does the life of some stranger matter to them?

Technically, it may not have been their "responsibility" in terms of job description and division of labour, to have jumped in to save that woman. Technically, it may, indeed, have been the "responsibility" of the fire and rescue service. However, MORALLY, it WAS their responsibility to save her. It was essentially wrong for them to do nothing to help her, when not doing so would mean her death, when they were, quite clearly, in a position to help: they were standing by the body of water, in which was drowning. Basic humanity, and concern for our fellow human beings, should have guided them to save her. Yet, they had neither responsibility, nor humanity. They did not feel bound either by the rules under which they worked, or any sense of the value of human life. These policemen lack basic humanity.

It concerns me that they felt their job descriptions took precedence over their humanity. No job description should take precedence over humanity. That is the route on which the Nazis trod. They justified their inhumanity, by their job descriptions. So, too, were these policemen. Their indifference to that woman's life, was just as much a crime, as anything Germans managed to do a few generations before. The same thought process is at work: they justified their lack of action to save a life, based on their job descriptions and the division of labour in the emergency services. The value of a life, had no value for them. Only the rules under which they operate had value. There is something profoundly disturbing about that.

No rule should take precedence over human life. No job description should ever lead to inhuman acts. Yet, for the British police, rules do take precedence over life - and they do lead to inhuman acts, or inhuman inaction.

I must say, I don't recognize what Britain has become since I left it, in 1999. The place has been transformed into something I do not know, anymore. I feel the country of my birth has died, since I left it. It is no more. In its place we have something rather disturbing, if you care to look at it, with any perception.

I hope the publicity attached to this near drowning leads to a change in the rules that govern police action and inaction. Those rules cannot be allowed to stand unchanged if they lead, directly, to an indifference to basic humanity and the value of human life.

All Britain has to do, is to remind its public servants, that humanity should take precedence over any rule or regulation that has been, is, or shall be ever invented. Call that Rule No. 1.

(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:
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Gordon Brown ex-Prime Minister, premium ranter.

Gordon Brown has done it again. He has, with the utmost creativity, invented a pattern of behaviour that would be beyond any normal person. He has launched into a huge - and apparently threatening - rant, against Nick Clegg, whilst ostensibly trying to have a conversation about forming a coalition to co-operate over ruling Britain.

Clearly, Gordon Brown is not quite all there. His action is such a self-defeating, self-destructive one, that one can only assume that he is not really thinking - he is just striking out in uncontrolled rage.

I tried to comment on the Daily Mail article that brought Gordon Brown's rage to my attention - but, as is usual with the Daily Mail, they CENSORED my comment and REFUSED TO PUBLISH IT. I have had this problem with the Daily Mail before. They have never successfully published any letter or comment post, I have tried to make. I find this a little odd, since other newspapers seem to have no problem publishing my comments. Perhaps the Daily Mail lives in a world of its own biases, prejudices and circumscriptions.

Well, here is the comment (roughly) that I tried to publish on the Daily Mail article about Gordon Brown's rant:

"A man who becomes furious, at a time like this, is not in control of himself. How, then, can Gordon Brown control a nation? He should never have been in this position, at all.

I do not envy Nick Clegg his decisions at this time. I only hope that he decides the best for Britain, and not for his party, or self."

Apparently, the Daily Mail thought my sentiments dangerously unprintable - since they didn't print a word of it. I wonder at their curious censorship choices. It seems to me that there is a lot more wrong with Britain than its political system: even its media seem questionable, when a simple, honest, unthreatening view, is not allowed to be printed, at all.

The other time the Daily Mail didn't print what I wrote it was about child development, of all things...yet, again, they didn't see fit to allow it past their censor. How strange...it is almost as if they censor, not my words, but my self.

Never mind. The fact remains that Gordon Brown does not have the emotional maturity to be a leader of anything, never mind a nation. It rather shocks me that Britain could ever have allowed a man like him, any power at all. Most countries have better ways to deal with such people.

(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:
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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/
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The wisdom and folly of Great Britain.

Great Britain is showing both wisdom and folly in recent times. It is curious to observe these two characteristics at work, simultaneously, in one of the world's great, but formerly greater nations.

I admire the preparedness that Great Britain is showing against the flu pandemic - this one, and all others, that might or might not come. Great Britain has the highest proportion of Tamiflu/Relenza antiviral treatments that I have seen in any nation - enough for 55% of the population. They are also seeking to buy 32 million masks, on the international market (enough for each of those receiving treatment, basically). Now, I look at those numbers and I see a great willingness to do what is necessary to mitigate this coming pandemic. There is wisdom in their actions, in this case. It should also be noted that these medications and masks would, I have no doubt, be issued FREE to everyone, under the National Health Service - it would not be a case of the poor must go without (as it would in certain Asian countries I could mention). There is a wisdom in that, too, since disease spreads between people of all degrees of wealth and treating people for free, ensures that the poorer members of society do not pass illness to the richer members. So, not only is it humane, but it is good public health policy, too.

Yet, there is another decision that the UK has made which does not seem so wise. The government is raising the top rate of tax to 50% from next April. Last year they raised it from 40% to 45%. This will apply to all people earning more than 150,000 pounds. They are also removing all tax allowances from people earning more than 100,000 pounds a year. Apparently, these changes will affect the top 600,000 earners, in the UK. This strikes me as particularly foolish - for it is a competitive world and one thing all nations are competing for is talent. If Britain takes too much of the earnings of its most talented people off them, they will just up and leave. Great Britain will not stay "great" for too long, if it is scaring accomplished people away.

There is, perhaps, a philosophical connection between the first examples of wisdom and the example of folly. It is clear that the public health preparedness costs money and that this money is raised in taxes. So, the attitude that leads to great preparedness also leads to greater spending. Yet, in this particular case, the connection is weak. It does not cost much that much to be prepared for a flu pandemic. However, it is true that if there is a general tendency to spend, there will be an increased tendency to tax.

The way things are going, Great Britain looks set to be a healthy nation, with a great shortage of skilled people. It could be said that the new tax policy could cost Britain more in lost economic health - as good people leave - than the public health policy will save them.

It is strange to see such long-sightedness on public health present in the same country where such short-sightedness is present with regards to taxation and talent retention. It is my view that Britain will learn an interesting lesson over the next few years: that taxation is limited not by legislation, but by competition with other nations, for talent retention. Great Britain is just about to lose a lot of its talent, to the rest of the lower taxed world. I hope Britain wakes up to the situation before the damage is too great.

(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 top 100 living geniuses

Who are the greatest living geniuses of today? Creators Synectics asked and answered this question. They did so by asking 4,000 Britons to list up to 10 living people they considered geniuses. They received just 1,100 nominations in reply (which would seem to suggest that many Britons are not interested enough in genius to answer a question about them). Only 60 per cent of these nominees were actually alive at the time - the dead ones being discounted owing to their poor health.

Now, I would like you to guess (without looking at the list below to cheat), which country had the most geniuses per head of population, on Earth (according to this survey)?

The answer was Britain. One Briton out of every 2.5 million is considered a living genius, by the respondents. For America, only one in every 6.9 million Americans was considered a genius.

If this survey is accurate, it would seem to suggest that something in the British culture and education system is more conducive to giving rise to genius than the American system. It may be, for instance, that the American system is insufficiently intellectually challenging in High School (and perhaps at Bachelor's degree level) to bring out the best in its students. Whatever the reason, it is something to be concerned about, for it suggests that America's intellectual pre-eminence in the world is not to be an enduring one. To make the comparison more clear, if these proportions for genius hold true, then Britain has 23 living geniuses and America, just 43. Thus, though America is far vaster in size, it does not have a comparable intellectual weight.

One reason for this could be that the people asked for their opinion were Britons. That might hold true in a world where information was not transmitted so readily. In the modern world, fame extends around the world. American geniuses are just as familiar to Britons as British ones - so too the geniuses from elsewhere in the world. So, I doubt that that is the explanation. The Britons would know of American geniuses (and those from elsewhere) and would therefore be able to vote for them.

Nor can we say that they were excluding Americans in preference for Britons, because they had up to 10 votes each: there was room for many a nationality there.

We have to consider, therefore, that this is a real difference and that American ingenuity is not, comparatively, what one would have thought. Perhaps they need to become more attractive to British immigrants.

A note: when this list was compiled, Bobby Fischer was still alive.

Other curiosities: J K Rowling is on the list. I am not sure that she is really a genius, for her work does appear to be rather derivative - yet she got the popular vote. Damien Hirst, too, has often been accused of plagiarism, by other artists - so his place, too, is questionable.

The funniest thing about the list is Richard Branson's description as a "publicist". In a way, that is exactly what he is, for he has built his Virgin empire on generating media coverage for himself.

The numbers after each listing are the score for the genius in terms of five factors that were used to rank them. The factors are: paradigm shifting; popular acclaim; intellectual power; achievement and cultural importance. It is notable that some geniuses secured a very low score. This means that though they were voted in by the people, the judges did not think them to have great power as geniuses. Quentin Tarantino best exemplifies this, on the bottom of the list with a score of 2. He, too, is known to be derivative in the extreme (a big chunk of Reservoir Dogs echoes Ringo Lam's City of Fire, very closely). Again, therefore, he shouldn't really be on the list at all.

Interestingly, the joint first place goes to two scientists: Albert Hoffman, the chemist who invented LSD - and Tim Berners-Lee who invented that other hallucinogenic distraction, the world wide web.

Please take a look at this list and give me your views, if you wish, as to whether these people should be on it, in the first place. Are they geniuses? Are they good enough to be in the top 100? Who is NOT on the list that you think should be? Is Britain truly producing more geniuses than any other country on Earth, per head of population?

I originally encountered this list on the Daily Telegraph website, from the UK.



1= Albert Hoffman (Swiss) Chemist 27
1= Tim Berners-Lee (British) Computer Scientist 27
3 George Soros (American) Investor & Philanthropist 25
4 Matt Groening (American) Satirist & Animator 24
5= Nelson Mandela (South African) Politician & Diplomat 23
5= Frederick Sanger (British) Chemist 23
7= Dario Fo (Italian) Writer & Dramatist 22
7= Steven Hawking (British) Physicist 22
9= Oscar Niemeyer (Brazilian) Architect 21
9= Philip Glass (American) Composer 21
9= Grigory Perelman (Russian) Mathematician 21
12= Andrew Wiles (British) Mathematician 20
12= Li Hongzhi (Chinese) Spiritual Leader 20
12= Ali Javan (Iranian) Engineer 20
15= Brian Eno (British) Composer 19
15= Damien Hirst (British) Artist 19
15= Daniel Tammet (British) Savant & Linguist 19
18 Nicholson Baker (American) Writer 18
19 Daniel Barenboim (N/A) Musician 17
20= Robert Crumb (American) Artist 16
20= Richard Dawkins (British) Biologist and philosopher 16
20= Larry Page & Sergey Brin (American) Publishers 16
20= Rupert Murdoch (American) Publisher 16
20= Geoffrey Hill (British) Poet 16
25 Garry Kasparov (Russian) Chess Player 15
26= The Dalai Lama (Tibetan) Spiritual Leader 14
26= Steven Spielberg (American) Film maker 14
26= Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japanese) Roboticist 14
26= Robert Edwards (British) Pioneer of IVF treatment 14
26= Seamus Heaney (Irish) Poet 14
31 Harold Pinter (British) Writer & Dramatist 13
32= Flossie Wong-Staal (Chinese) Bio-technologist 12
32= Bobby Fischer (American) Chess Player 12
32= Prince (American) Musician 12
32= Henrik Gorecki (Polish) Composer 12
32= Avram Noam Chomski (American) Philosopher & linguist 12
32= Sebastian Thrun (German) Probabilistic roboticist 12
32= Nima Arkani Hamed (Canadian) Physicist 12
32= Margaret Turnbull (American) Astrobiologist 12
40= Elaine Pagels (American) Historian 11
40= Enrique Ostrea (Philippino) Pediatrics & neonatology 11
40= Gary Becker (American) Economist 11
43= Mohammed Ali (American) Boxer 10
43= Osama Bin Laden (Saudi) Islamicist 10
43= Bill Gates (American) Businessman 10
43= Philip Roth (American) Writer 10
43= James West (American) Invented the foil electrical microphone 10
43= Tuan Vo-Dinh (Vietnamese) Bio-Medical Scientist 10
49= Brian Wilson (American) Musician 9
49= Stevie Wonder (American) Singer songwriter 9
49= Vint Cerf (American) Computer scientist 9
49= Henry Kissinger (American) Diplomat and politician 9
49= Richard Branson (British) Publicist 9
49= Pardis Sabeti (Iranian) Biological anthropologist 9
49= Jon de Mol (Dutch) Television producer 9
49= Meryl Streep (American) Actress 9
49= Margaret Attwood (Canadian) Writer 9
58= Placido Domingo (Spanish) Singer 8
58= John Lasseter (American) Digital Animator 8
58= Shunpei Yamazaki (Japanese) Computer scientist & physicist 8
58= Jane Goodall (British) Ethologist & Anthropologist 8
58= Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri (Indian) Historian 8
58= John Goto (British) Photographer 8
58= Paul McCartney (British) Musician 8
58= Stephen King (American) Writer 8
58= Leonard Cohen (American) Poet & musician 8
67= Aretha Franklin (American) Musician 7
67= David Bowie (British) Musician 7
67= Emily Oster (American) Economist 7
67= Steve Wozniak (American) Engineer and co-founder of Apple Computers 7
67= Martin Cooper (American) Inventor of the cell phone 7
72= George Lucas (American) Film maker 6
72= Niles Rogers (American) Musician 6
72= Hans Zimmer (German) Composer 6
72= John Williams (American) Composer 6
72= Annette Baier (New Zealander) Philosopher 6
72= Dorothy Rowe (British) Psychologist 6
72= Ivan Marchuk (Ukrainian) Artist & sculptor 6
72= Robin Escovado (American) Composer 6
72= Mark Dean (American) Inventor & computer scientist 6
72= Rick Rubin (American) Musician & producer 6
72= Stan Lee (American) Publisher 6
83= David Warren (Australian) Engineer 5
83= Jon Fosse (Norwegian) Writer & dramatist
83= Gjertrud Schnackenberg (American) Poet 5
83= Graham Linehan (Irish) Writer & dramatist 5
83= JK Rowling (British) Writer 5
83= Ken Russell (British) Film maker 5
83= Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (Russian) Small arms designer 5
83= Erich Jarvis (American) Neurobiologist 5
91=. Chad Varah (British) Founder of Samaritans 4
91= Nicolas Hayek (Swiss) Businessman and founder of Swatch 4
91= Alastair Hannay (British) Philosopher 4
94= Patricia Bath (American) Ophthalmologist
94= Thomas A. Jackson (American) Aerospace engineer 3
94= Dolly Parton (American) Singer 3
94= Morissey (British) Singer 3
94= Michael Eavis (British) Organiser of Glastonbury 3
94= Ranulph Fiennes (British) Adventurer 3
100=. Quentin Tarantino (American) Filmmaker 2

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six 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, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Was Winston Churchill real?

You might think this a funny question. However, it was a question that was asked of 3,000 Britons recently in a survey by UKTV Gold, of their tv viewers.

In the survey, the viewers were asked to judge whether various people were real or fictional. You might think this a simple enough task - but it proved to be rather more difficult than you might expect.

23% of the respondents thought that Winston Churchill was a fictional character. You read that correctly - almost a quarter of Britons don't believe Winston Churchill actually existed. They think someone made him up.

Even more intriguingly, 58% of them thought that Sherlock Holmes, the fictional, pipe-smoking, superhuman detective of Arthur Conan Doyle, was a real, formerly living, detective.

I found this profoundly odd. It means that Britons today are more prepared to believe that a work of fiction was real, than that the wartime Prime Minister of Britain, ever existed. It means that, for them, television (through which they no doubt encountered Sherlock Holmes) was greater proof of existence, than a permanent place in the history books.

There is more. 47% of them thought that Richard the Lionheart - the 12th Century crusading King - was a fictional monarch. Even more curiously, 65% of them thought that King Arthur (for whom there is basically no tangible evidence) was a real man who led a round table of Knights at Camelot.

Thus to have been a great King, is less likely to win believers in one's existence, than to have been a great story.

Florence Nightingale never existed, according to 27% of Britons. That is some thanks for all her nursing efforts in the Crimean War.

However, music is so powerful that it has conjured Eleanor Rigby into existence for the 47% of respondents who believe in her reality. She was, of course, a creation of the Beatles to make a musical point.

3% thought that the famed author Charles Dickens was himself a work of fiction. However, 33% of the very same people thought that Biggles, the fictional pilot of W.E Johns, really flew.

The top ten list of generally held fictions, that were actually believed to be real is as follows:

1) King Arthur.
2) Sherlock Holmes.
3) Robin Hood.
4) Eleanor Rigby.
5) Mona Lisa.
6) Dick Turpin.
7) Biggles.
8) The Three Musketeers.
9) Lady Godiva.
10) Robinson Crusoe.

The top ten list of real people who were thought to be fictional creations is:

1) Richard the Lionheart
2) Winston Churchill
3) Florence Nightingale
4) Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery
5) Queen Boadicea
6) Sir Walter Raleigh
7) Duke of Wellington
8) Cleopatra
9) Mahatma Gandhi
10) Charles Dickens

Education is not what it should be in many parts of the world (perhaps all). Clearly, in Britain today - and for some time - education is not fulfilling its purpose of giving people an understanding of the world. Britons today, as this survey shows, quite often cannot tell fiction from reality. They don't know what the real world is - or has been. How, then, can they make realistic decisions in this world, when they don't even know what is real and what is not?

Looking at the fictional characters that they thought were real, I am struck by how unlikely it seems that they could have thought them real. There is something impossible about most of them. Yet, they were believed to be real.

Of course, there are a couple of questionable entries in the "fiction" list which blurs matters somewhat. Someone really did sit for Leonardo da Vinci, to be painted - and her name was Lisa, so perhaps we can discount that one. (Even if the painting wasn't true to her - we will never know). Also, there really was a "Dick Turpin". Unfortunately, he wasn't the one who did what was attributed to him - so in that sense it was fictional. These exceptions aside, however, it is all rather worrying.

Most of the viewers will be young people. What kind of world will they create when they become the backbone of their society? Clearly, they are poorly educated - and perhaps even not very bright as well.

It doesn't forbode well for the UK. However, other nations were not surveyed: would they similarly come off poorly? Is this a global problem for our poorly educated global youth? I rather hope it is not. I would like to think that, in most countries, the young people could tell the difference between a book (ie. Great Expectations) and its author (Charles Dickens). At the very least they should know which one speaks of people who really existed.

(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.)