Lee Kuan Yew and Language Education in Singapore.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, was quoted, recently, in Petir, the People's Action Party magazine, as saying: "Initially, I believed that intelligence was equated to language ability. Later, I found that they are two different attributes - IQ and a facility for languages. My daughter, a neurologist, confirmed this,". Commentary in the articles that relate to this, state that this realization took 30 years. In the meantime, difficult education policies on bilingualism were implemented - ones that ignored the difficulty of acquiring a second language, for many students.

Now, it seems to me, that the implications of this realization have not been entirely examined. PSLE, for instance, requires, if I am not mistaken, examination in English and "Mother Tongue"...that is, a second language, determined by the race of the examinee. It has always seemed suspect to me, to state that because someone is of a particular race, that they must also be of a particular language. My children, for instance are, yes, half-Malay...but they have far less than half the normal opportunity to learn Malay. You see, I don't speak Malay, so most of the conversation in our household is, necessarily in English. Thus, it is a nonsense to have a policy which requires my children to be Malay speakers (because they have a Malay mother), when they don't really come from a Malay speaking household. There are many families like this, families which have a particular racial background but do NOT have the corresponding language background. Yet, at PSLE, all families must submit to the demand for examination in English and Mother Tongue. As we can see from MM Lee's own admission, this makes no sense at all, with regards to the intended aim of selecting the most able students. Ability in languages is not a catch-all for general mental ability: it is a specific capability. Leonardo da Vinci, the famously polymathic genius, was not so strong in languages: perhaps in Singapore he would have been relegated to poorer schools because of it. How ridiculous is that?

So, let us heed MM Lee's recent acquisition of wisdom regarding languages and IQ. Let us have a PSLE system which does NOT require multiple languages for examination. Perhaps the student can nominate which language exam they wish to take - and take only one. Either that, or they could take both - and ONLY the highest one should count towards the determination of their standing in the PSLE.

The real question we have to answer regarding the PSLE is: what is it for? Is it to determine the relative capability of students, in terms of actual intelligence? If so, drop the multiple language requirement because different students have different opportunities to learn languages, so what is being compared is not their intellects, but their environments. If, however, Singapore just wants a system to determine who is the best fit to a multilingual environment, then carry on the present system unchanged. It doesn't find the smartest students...it just finds those best fitted to a multilingual environment. They are not necessarily the same thing. Just ask Leonardo da Vinci, the famous non-linguist. (By the way, I think Leonardo would have been horrified by Singapore's education system...)

(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.)

Why can't the PAP find talent?

The PAP (People's Action Party) of Singapore (in fact, it seems the People's Action Party IS Singapore), has a problem: they can't find new talent. The leaders of the PAP are always bemoaning the great shortage of talent in Singapore and repeatedly state that, despite looking high and low, they can't find anyone to replace themselves, in time to come. The question that comes to me is: why?

You see mathematically, the PAP's complaint is more than a little strange. It is, for instance, a local myth that you need to be particularly talented to be an MP, in fact, Members of Parliament SHOULDN'T be particularly talented. The reason for this is simple, some research that I read long ago, but would have to source again to reference, stated that a leader should be no more than 30 IQ points above the led, so as to preserve the ability to communicate with their constituency. If the leader was too bright, there would be a disconnect with their people and communication would break down. Now, this leads us to a very interesting conclusion: there is no shortage of talent in Singapore for the PAP, or at least, there shouldn't be.

To have an IQ 30 points above the norm is not particularly rare. In fact its theoretical rarity is one person in 44. Thus, one person in 44 in Singapore is at the limit of brightness permissible in an effective leader. This means that among Singapore's 3.16 million citizens (the last time I read a figure in an article), there should be 71,818 people with IQs 30 points above the norm (or about 134 IQ points). That is a very telling result, for all those who have believed that Singapore does, indeed, have a PAP talent shortage. There are 89 PAP MPs. This means that Singapore has enough people of the right IQ to make 807 PAP parties. Furthermore, this is a gross under-estimate of the situation, for it excludes those people whose IQs are less than 134 (who are far more numerous) and who could also do a good job and communicate effectively to the people. It also excludes those whose IQs are slightly above 134 but not so far above as to have a disastrous communication gap.

Thus one can conclude that there are, in Singapore, enough people, with enough "talent" to produce thousands of political parties the size of the PAP. (For the numbers of people with adequate IQs less than 134 is far more numerous than those with IQs of 134. Note the figure 134 comes from the fact that the average IQ in Singapore, according to some studies, is 104).

So, given this super-abundance of appropriate talent, why does the PAP protest the lack of talent for their succession?

There a number of possibilities. Firstly, is the possibility that the PAP has, in its recruitment procedures decided to try to maximise the intelligence of its MPs, to the extreme limit, such that there really are only 89 candidates. This would be a startling scenario, for it implies that the IQs of these MPs is at a rarity of 89/3.16 million. That would be one person in 35,506 people. That means, given Singapore's mean of 104, that the PAP MPs must have IQs of about 168, on average. I find this absurd in the extreme, since the average IQ of Nobel Prize Winners in Science is only 159, according to the Sigma Society.

Are we really expected to believe that PAP MPs are nine IQ points smarter, on average, than Nobel Prize Winners in Science? If so, Singapore would truly have to be run remarkably well. I will leave it to your own opinions to decide whether that is so.

If, however, it is, in fact, so that PAP MPs are as smart as 168 IQ points, each, on average, then that explains something about the way government is conducted locally. People that smart cannot lead ordinary people, because they cannot communicate effectively with them. Thus, if it is so, that the PAP have set things up like this, then it is not surprising that many people are unhappy with them.

Yet, I do not think it is so. Few people who are aware of what a person of an IQ of 168 is like would confuse such a person with local MPs - at least, not from the evidence of their public utterances. Also, it would be reasonable to expect close to perfection from them, in their decision making, were they as smart, as a cohort, as this.

Thus, given the fact that the optimal IQ of a Singaporean MP is only 134 IQ points and that there are 71,818 such people in Singapore, one can conclude that another force must be at work. Quite simply Singaporeans must not want to be PAP MPs. There are over 807 times as many good candidates as there are MP jobs, yet, still the PAP has difficulty with recruitment. This means, basically, that the chance of someone wanting to be an MP is 807 to one (0.001239 of the acceptable population). In fact, of course, this is an underestimate of the unlikelihood of someone wanting to be an MP, since there are many more viable candidates who don't have the exact IQ in question. The true figure would be several thousands to one.

This analysis, which has been guided by numbers and logic alone leads me to ask a question: does the government really believe that the problem is a lack of talent? If so, this would seem to indicate a lack of understanding of the electorate. There is no lack of talent. However, there does appear to be a strong desire, among Singaporeans, NOT to become involved in politics. This could be because of the way politics is conducted in Singapore. For those overseas readers who don't know, the government of Singapore is the PAP and they have a habit of crushing all nascent opposition with every means possible. This makes Singapore effectively a one party state. Perhaps the people of Singapore are uncomfortable with this way of conducting politics and wish to stay out of it.

The tale of the numbers are clear. There are only two evident explanations. Either the PAP has made a fundamental error in selection in thinking that only supersmart people should be MPs, (and the evidence of their public images is against this interpretation) or the people of Singapore simply don't want to be politicians.

The PAP explanation that there is an absence of talent is proven to be false, by these numbers. The talent is there: but perhaps the willingness to be involved is not.

I wonder if the PAP allowed other parties to flourish (which they have not) whether Singapore would discover an abundance of talent, where before there was none? It seems to me that Singapore, which has always justified its one party system on the basis that there was not enough talent to support two parties or more, has more than enough talent, statistically, for a plurality of parties. What it lacks, however, is the willingness of the government to allow any opposition within its shores.

Now, I have written this post, without any interest in the politics of the situation at all. Singapore is not my country. I am merely an observer of it. However, curiosity led me to analyse the IQ distribution and the consequences of that, to see what the true tale of the underlying talent would be. I report the results, much as a scientist does, with no opinion of the results other than to say these are the results. So, let no-one think that I have any political motive in writing this post. I have no interest in the politics of Singapore at all (it is really too dull a subject to have much interest in). I do, however, have a scientific interest in the truth - and the truth is that Singapore has an abundance of talent adequate to the task of being an MP, in Singapore. MPs don't need to be geniuses - in fact they shouldn't be. Given that, Singapore has more than enough talent to run the nation. The big question remains, of course: why is the PAP, then, having such difficulty with recruitment and succession?

(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.

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

The value of being gifted.

Someone arrived on my site, today, with what I regard as strange search terms: "IQ 130 - how much money make".

It wasn't the grammatical choices that concerned me terribly, but the underlying world view of such a query of the internet. I cannot discern whether this is someone who has just had their IQ tested and is wondering how much money they will make in later life, or someone just interested in how much such a person would make. I can tell this, however: they haven't truly understood what being gifted means and the opportunities it presents.

Giftedness is not about money-making. If it was, the richest people would be the smartest - and oddly, they are usually not. They are "smart enough" to run their businesses, but not necessarily as smart as some of the people they employ. Their primary gifts are not necessarily in intellectual areas at all. No: richness and wealth do not equate. Wealth comes from a certain approach to life, in some cases one that others may not agree with - but it is not the inevitable product of intelligence. They are some rather dim rich people and some rather bright poor ones. Though, generally speaking, someone of high intelligence will do "alright" financially - though not necessarily as well as their not-so-bright but more money minded sibling/classmate.

Giftedness presents opportunities for doing things other than make money. It provides the opportunity to do something special. A gifted person who was also creative might write a novel, create a new product/invention, compose music, start a new business, in a new niche, propose a new scientific theory and any number of possible contributions. A gifted person who was not creative might make an outstanding accountant, lawyer or doctor - or any other professional in which intelligence, but not necessarily creativity, was required.

Giftedness is about doing something better than others could - or doing something outside the norm if creatively gifted. If there is money to be made by doing so, it is not usually the primary goal of a gifted person.

Gifted people are usually deeper than to choose the one-dimensional aspiration of "making as much money as possible". If someone's aspiration is to do just that, they are not usually particularly gifted, in my observation, because they have not seen a deeper meaning to life than material acquisition - and so are usually not the brightest of the bright.

A gifted person will often find a goal for their life that is unusual, a goal that others might not understand, but which, if attained, or even just pursued, will add to life in a unique way. That is a better contribution to life and the world, than just amassing the greatest possible fortune.

A gifted person is many things - but the one thing they are usually not, is a money-making machine. That latter accomplishment is usually left to those who are not as bright, but are much more switched on by the drive to amass money.

Linus Pauling, the Chemist and double Nobel Prize Winner, didn't make much money (apart from his Nobel Prizes). There are many, many far less bright people who were much richer. A typical American doctor, for instance, would be much richer than Pauling was. Money-making wasn't Pauling's primary objective: expanding the reaches of science was.

Pauling's life provides an example as to why the most gifted are usually not the richest: their life objectives are higher ones than making money. Any money they make is incidental to the higher calling that is their life's devoted goal.

Were there no people like Pauling - people devoted to their subject or cause, the world, as a culture, would be much the poorer. These gifted people make life richer for all of us, if not for themselves, by their contributions.

Gifted people will often live rich lives in ways not measurable by money. Their lives are rich in experiences, contributions, ideas, projects, new things done and great goals achieved. It is for these things that we should look to them, in admiration - not their yachts and mansions (which they probably won't have).

Society needs gifted people whose goals are other than making money. These gifted people may make ideas that change life for the better for many or for all - and such people are of greater value, therefore, than the world's plutocrats, most of whom don't make much real difference at all. (They do what would be done anyway, without adding anything new).

Some societies drill their gifted young people to aim for money as their highest goal. Singapore is one such place. I wonder how limiting that is, in the way they go on to lead their lives. If a nation's gifted people have the one-dimensional aspiration of money-making as their sole goal, then that nation will never truly shine. Perhaps that explains the way Singapore is: a nation whose gifted people are not encouraged, or even allowed, to have higher goals than the pursuit of wealth. The result is clear to see.

It is telling that the searcher who came to my site with those words: "IQ 130 how much money make" was searching from a Singaporean IP address.

It is time that the education system, here, instilled a deeper set of values than the almighty dollar and its pursuit. The dollar is not the meaning of life - and if it becomes so, the life that is led is ultimately fruitless, and shallow.

They are many other values which a nation could impart to its young. There are many other things in life of value than just money alone. Perhaps it is time for the dollar obsessed nations of the world - of which Singapore is one - to urge their young to look to these other values, too, so that some might choose a deeper path for life.

Oh, by the way, an IQ of 130 is probably enough to make as much money as you might wish for - if the moderately gifted person chooses the right area in which to apply their minds. Some very rich people don't appear to be any brighter than that.

(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.)

Reaction time predicts longevity.

No doubt you have heard the saying: "The Quick and The Dead", as applied, by Hollywood, to gunslingers. Well, it applies more generally than that. It seems that the quick live longer.

Research published in Psychological Science - the Journal of the American Psychological Society - has revealed a strong correlation between reaction time, and ultimate longevity.

The paper, "Reaction time explains IQ's association with death" in January 2005, looked at 898 people aged 54 to 58 in Scotland who were given an IQ test and a reaction time test (visual response time) in 1988. They were also asked various health related questions. Over the next 14 years, 185 of them died. An analysis of the relationship between longevity and IQ, showed (as have other studies) that high IQs tended to correlate with greater survival and longer life times. However, a stronger correlation was found between reaction time and longevity.

Ian Deary of Edinburgh University and Geoff Der of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, Glasgow, surmised that reaction time could be indicating the presence or otherwise of brain degeneration, with consequent effects on survival.

In the light of this finding I went off and tested my reaction time. The results were a lot better than characteristic of my age, so on this particular issue I don't seem to have any worries. In fact, I was relieved to find that my times were better than those of 30 year olds (and therefore 20 year olds, too)...Let's hope they stay that way (though as regular readers will know from an earlier post, the ageing process tends to slow one down considerably.)

So, the moral of the story is as Hollywood would love it to be: be quick, not dead.

(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.)

Height and Intelligence (IQ), a correlation.

There is a correlation between height and intelligence, as measured by IQ. The correlation is 0.2. Although this is a weak correlation, it is statistically significant and accounts for about 4% of the variation in IQ between people.

Now, before I go on, I should add that this correlation is not strong enough to bar the idea of a short, smart person. They exist, no doubt, in plenty. What it is saying, however, is that there is a tendency for intelligent people to also be taller.

Studies suggest that there are common genetic factors involved in both height and intelligence. So, it is no coincidence that they correlate, positively.

All this leads me to look at my own children. Ainan, for instance is notably tall for his age and race. He is about 1 metre 36 centimetres, as of a month or two ago (maybe taller now) - and growing fast. He is the tallest person in his class (barring another child of similar height). I understand there are about 40 people in his class. His shortest classmate is a full head shorter than Ainan. That is, his friend's head sits under Ainan's chin.

Ainan is not the tallest person in his year. That accolade goes to a friend of his. However, according to a chart of heights of American boys from 2000, he is now at least the average height of an American nine and a half year old boy. So, he is tall for his age.

I look at Fintan, too. In another post, I pointed out that Fintan was of the weight of a six year old Caucasian (actually, the weight of a six and a half year old, Caucasian American boy.) What I failed to point out, however, is that he is also of the HEIGHT of a six year old Caucasian boy (though he is only four years old). So, he, too, is rather tall for his age.

This impression of their heights is a little distorted (underestimated) by the fact that I am comparing them to a Caucasian population, when both are, of course, Eurasian (who tend to be slighter, and not so tall, as full Caucasians).

Looking at them, now, I can't help but wonder how tall they might be, one day. Will they be taller than their Daddy?

We will see. I wouldn't be surprised if both of them make it.

(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 six months, and Tiarnan, twenty-three 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, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Adult IQ Tests and Children.

Recently, a searcher arrived on my site with the terms: "If a child takes an adult IQ test." I didn't have the time to respond, then, but I shall now.

Many - in fact, most - of the tests available online are for adults. They are for adults in a very special way. If they are proper tests, they will have been normed for adults. This means that a body of adults will have been tested using the IQ test, and a distribution of performances plotted. This will have verified the test against a standard population. It is what gives the test validity and allows us to interpret what its results mean. For instance, that a person of a particular IQ result was better than 1 in 100, or 1 in 1000 of the test population. We are, in effect, comparing anyone new who takes the test, with those who originally took the test. This is what all official IQ tests have had done. (Well, deviation IQ tests anyway.)

Now, there is a big problem if a child takes such a test. The problem comes when the adult (usually a parent), doesn't understand how tests are constructed and verified. If they don't understand that a test has been normed against an adult population, they may be very, very upset with the result their "bright" child gets. By taking the test, the parent is, unwittingly, comparing the child against an ADULT POPULATION. The result is not compared against a population of the child's agemates. As a result the outcome is not what it seems. If, for instance a six year old takes an adult IQ test and scores at an IQ of 70, the parent might be rather shocked. But it doesn't mean that at all. It means that the child of six was performing as an adult with an IQ of 70 would perform. For a six year old, that would, in fact, be a pretty good result - not a bad result, as the parent might have thought.

What if another six year old scored above a 100 on an adult IQ test? That would be phenomenal. For it would indicate that the six year old was performing on a par with adults...or above average adults. It would be a very good result indeed. However, the parent might think "Oh...100, (or 108 or whatever) is pretty average, little Johnny can't be that bright after all..." and be disappointed. So, again, the parent would get an unfortunate impression of their gifted child.

Thus, it is misleading to use an adult IQ test for a child. The IQ result only tells us how your child compares to an adult population. It does not tell us the child's true IQ, in the way the term is meant these days: comparison for rarity with children of their own age.

The child who scores 100 in an adult IQ test, at the age of 6, might actually score in the region of 200 to 300 on a child's test, normed for 6 year olds. That is just a ballpark estimate of the situation. So, one can see how misleading adult IQ tests can be for the assessment of the intellectual performance of children.

If you want to know your child's real IQ, there is only solution: an IQ test that has been normed on a relevant population - children of their own age. Any other test, is going to give you an incorrect assessment.

So, for all those parents who have given an adult IQ test to their children...I would suggest finding a proper test, and trying again - if you really want to know the truth.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two 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, 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.)

Intelligence and ESP, Psi, Precognition

Why do some people believe in psi phenomena and others don't? Why do some people accept such things as precognition (seeing the future), clairvoyance (seeing at a distance, without being there), telepathy (reading someone's mind), clairaudience (hearing at a distance, without being there), esp (extrasensory perception - a ragbag term for the above), parapsychology and psychic matters in general?

Well, there is a straightforward correlation on these issues between cognitive ability and belief. It is an inverse correlation, meaning the brighter you are, the less likely you are to believe.

Two studies, at least, have looked at this issue. One study by R.A. Griggs and W.S Messer in 1989, looked at classroom performance, as measured by grades, and the belief in psi phenomena, such as esp, precognition, out-of-the-body experiences etc. There was an inverse correlation. The higher the grades of the student, the lower the belief, and the converse.

The other study was conducted in 1980, by two psychologists: James Alcock and L.P. Otis. Their study found that those who believed in the paranormal, had lower "critical thinking skills" - which is clearly an aspect of convergent thinking - that is intelligence as it might have been measured by IQ.

Now, all of this shows that the more intelligent someone is, the less likely they are to believe anything "out of the normal". So, one might say that intelligence and skepticism are positively correlated - at least in matters that presently defy explanation or which have inconsistent or insufficient experimental support.

I should add that the fact that intelligent people tend not to be believe in esp, psi and the like, does not, of course, say anything about whether or not such things exist. It only says that intelligent people tend not to believe that they exist. (That being said, there have been a number of tantalizing experiments done, which raise issues that aren't fully explained...but perhaps more of that another day).

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty 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, 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.)

The mysterious genius of Athens

Consider these names: Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Anaxagoras, Demosthenes, Alcibiades, Phidias and Simonides. Consider also these lesser known names: Aspasia, Aristippus, Polynotos, Lycurgos, Lysias, Protagoras, and Praxiteles.

What do all these people have in common - apart from being known by but a single name?

The answer is more surprising than at first it seems. They are all Athenians, from Ancient Athens. Does that shock you? It did me. It shocked me because I troubled myself to find out a little more about Ancient Athens and its Golden Age. What I learnt is both humbling and terrible news for the modern era.

The first thing that should be noted is that all of these people lived in the period 440 BC to about 380 BC. This is the Golden Age of Athens. As you will have noted the first of the two lists is unequivocally a list of some of the greatest geniuses who ever lived - accounted by not only their impact and reputation in their own times, but by their subsequent effects on the development of Western civilization and rational thought. Without their impetus, most of what we enjoy today, would not have come to being. The underlying way of thinking would not have evolved. So, we owe a debt of great gratitude to these early rational thinkers and scientific philosophers - and playwrights, too, (for inventing the theatre), among other achievements.

The second list are also regarded as geniuses, but are of lesser reputation - but still, they are all Athenian - and that, in itself, is telling.

You see, I tried to find the population of Athens at the time in question. I saw estimates varying from just 90,000 people to a high of 250,000. The highest estimate, according to one historian, implied that were about 60,000 adult males in Athens at the time. This estimate is not just for Athens but for the city plus the entire surrounding territory of Attica, on which Athens stood. So, it is actually an over-estimate for Athens itself. (Quite a few estimates for Athens' population placed it at around 100,000 - so divide all these calculations by 2.5, if that figure is correct for the city of Athens, proper).

So, the largest estimate of the possible pool from which all these geniuses - and some of them were great geniuses indeed - is drawn - is just 60,000 men.

Think long about that. A significant number of the greatest thinkers in Ancient times were drawn from a pool of just 60,000 men! (At the highest estimate).

How many geniuses are there today in a gathering of 60,000 men in a typical developed country? I mean, true geniuses - people of genuine creative power? I would be surprised if there was even one, really surprised.

How many true geniuses are there alive in the world's 6,000,000,000 plus people, today? Very, very few.

How many should there be? Well, let us use Ancient Athens as our template - and just so you don't accuse me of massaging the figures, let us use a worst case scenario. Let us count the number of major geniuses in Athens in the list above - and forget about the ones of lesser reputation, in the first instance. There are 14 major geniuses in the list above - for a population of no more than 250,000 (including children and slaves - who didn't really have much chance of participating - so this actually dilutes the true impression of Athenians, proper).

How many great geniuses would there be in the world today, for a population of six billion?

Well it is 14 divided by 250,000 multiplied by 6,000,000,000. That gives us a total of: 336,000.

There would be a third of a million geniuses on a par with Plato and Socrates alive today, if modern humans were as the Ancient Athenians had been.

I, for one, do not believe that there are a third of a million such individuals alive today. It may even be that such a number of great geniuses have never, in fact, lived, in the whole history of the human race. (Had they lived, one would expect history to be littered with many more great men and women than seems to be the case).

Now, that calculation only looked at those geniuses of greatest reputation in Ancient Athens. Let us consider the whole list - but remember that these lists may have accidentally excluded other great names, too. So, it will be, if anything, an underestimate of the true situation.

Doing the calculation for the second list of seven names gives another 168,000 geniuses who should be alive today - but most probably aren't.

Now, it doesn't make sense that the lesser names should be half as numerous as the greater ones. Clearly, therefore, my list is incomplete. So this is just a rough guide to the situation. There should be several lesser names for every greater one. Remember though that these lesser names are geniuses too - great enough to be remembered by some two and a half millenia later. So they are not insignificant.

Adding the two estimates gives us at total of 504,000 geniuses for the modern world. That is enough to populate a sizable city. Yet, I doubt the actual number is great enough to fill a sizable hotel.

The conclusion we can draw from this is either something is wrong about modern man - or something was great about Athenian man. It is basically the same, relative, conclusion.

Francis Galton (February 16, 1822 to January 17, 1911) once noted concerning the Athenian situation that, for Ancient Athens to have possessed so many geniuses, that the average intelligence of its population would have had to have been "two grades above the mean for a modern European" (That is a 19th century human, who, I propose, would have been genetically superior to people of today for reasons to be discussed elsewhere). For Francis Galton, a grade equated to about 10 IQ points in the current way of looking at it. So, in Francis Galton's estimate, for there to have been so many geniuses, in such a small place as Ancient Athens, the mean IQ of the Athenian population must have been about an IQ of 120.

No nation, city or race on Earth in the modern world comes remotely close to such a figure. By comparison the mean IQ of our "world leader" - the United States is just 98. The highest is Hong Kong at a mean of 107. As for races and IQ, the highest is for the Ashkenazi Jews at just over 107 mean according to the biggest study I could find (and therefore likely to be the most representative), with a sample size of 1,236 Ashkenazi Jews, by Backman in 1972.

So, Athenian man (and woman) stood far above modern people in mean intelligence. Such a huge disparity in mean intelligence, would have led to a situation in which gifted people - by modern reckoning of that term, were super-abundant. A significant proportion of the population would have tested as "gifted or above". If the mean IQ was, in fact, 120 for Ancient Athens, then assuming a standard deviation of 15 about that mean (as it is today in the West), then fully 25 % of the population would have tested at the gifted range of 130 or above. One in four Athenians would have been considered gifted by modern standards, by this reckoning.

Let us look a little deeper. One in four would have been moderately gifted (IQ 130); One in twenty-one would have been highly gifted (IQ 145 and above); one in two hundred and sixty one would have been exceptionally gifted (IQ 160 and above) and one in thirty-one thousand five hundred and sixty would have been profoundly gifted (IQ 180 and above). By the way, this suggests one Athenian had an IQ of 187 (one in a quarter of a million).

Now even these figures will be an underestimate of the true situation because they use a normal curve to derive the probabilities - whereas the true, observed curve is trimodal, with higher than expected upper and lower occurrences of IQ.

By comparison, for the modern world, using the rarity expected in a normal distribution of standard deviation 15, gives 1 in 44, moderately gifted, 1 in 741 highly gifted, 1 in 31,560 exceptionally gifted, 1 in 20,696,000 will be profoundly gifted (or say fifteen people in the United states, today).

These figures can only, therefore, give you a feel for the situation - but an incredible one it is. Were modern men as gifted as Ancient Athenians, genius would be more common than footballers. Such a world would be far different from the one we actually have. Presumably, we would be far more advanced culturally, scientifically and technologically.

Yet, we are not as the Athenians were. Neither are the modern Greeks. Their mean IQ is a saddening 92.

What happened, then, to the great Athens and their superhuman Athenians? Well, plague took a lot of them (including Pericles) - one third in one bite. Then Sparta took a lot more of them, by defeating them. The sterility (and military discipline) of Sparta triumphed over the genius of Athens. In 338 B.C Philip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great's dad) conquered Athens ending its independence. Athens never shone again, as once it had.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen 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, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

IQ and the Politics of Science

IQ has been a contentious issue since it was developed in the early part of the twentieth century. The most common reason for contention has been the connection between IQ and genetics.

One of the early pioneers on the matter of IQ and genetics was Cyril Burt. You may have heard of him - and what you may have heard may not be entirely flattering - yet...have you been misinformed?

Cyril Burt was born in 1883 and his heyday was in the 1920s and 1930s. His work pioneered not only the question of genetics in IQ but also the sociological factors involved in poor school achievement and his work called attention to such matters, which seem obvious now, of poverty, overcrowding and the like. At the time, however, it was fresh work.

This is not why he is most famous, however - or infamous, for that matter. His work on the heritability of IQ is what led him into trouble. He published some studies of twins raised apart - and therefore growing up in different environments. If IQ was environmentally determined, one would expect that there would be little correlation, therefore, between their IQs. What his results showed, however, was that the correlation was very high indeed: a correlation of 0.77, in which a correlation of 1.0 would indicate identity of IQs.

This result caused an outcry among his environmental (nurture type) opponents. They were just not willing to accept his results. In due course, in 1973, Leon Kamin, then at Princeton University, cried "fraud" and stated that the fact that his correlation remained unchanged despite moving from 15 pairs of twins in 1943 to 53 pairs of twins in 1966, remaining at 0.77, once rounded off, indicated that the results were fraudulent.

The whole world joined in the ambush with even newspapers as eminent as The Sunday Times in England calling him a fraud and pounding his reputation into the ground. Cyril Burt was destroyed by this.

One curious accusation levelled against Cyril Burt was that his two assistants, referred to in his work, never existed. The charge was that he made up his assistants to lend corroboration to his work - which they also said he made up.

However, in 1989, a re-examination of the case against Burt by Robert B. Johnson, showed that the "evidence" was ill-founded and that it was most certainly not proven.

Tellingly, there have since been five other studies of monozygotic twins raised apart. The average IQ correlation shown in these studies is 0.75. This is remarkably similar to Burt's "fraudulent" results of 0.77. For a "fraud" his work is spot-on: how strange.

The worst part of this case though was what happened immediately after Cyril Burt's death in 1971. Liam Hudson, one of Cyril Burt's greatest enemies and most outspoken opponents rushed around to his house. Now, do you think he went there to express his sorrow? No. I am afraid not. He went there to instruct Burt's secretary-housekeeper to burn Burt's data and papers - which she duly did. Liam Hudson, Burt's opponent, personally oversaw the destruction of as much of Burt's lifework as he could.

This act appals me as much as the burning of the Library of Alexandria by the ignorant Romans.
The question is: why wasn't Liam Hudson sentenced to life in prison? He should have been for destroying the scientific work of a lifetime - but, as far as I am aware, nothing happened to him at all. He should still be in prison - but he never set foot in the place.

The other question is: why would Liam Hudson destroy Burt's work? If he genuinely believed Burt to be wrong about the hereditability of IQ, as he said, publicly, what would he have to fear from Burt's data? Clearly, though he spoke against it, he believed that Burt's data was correct and that IQ was highly heritable - otherwise he would have no motive to destroy the data set laboriously collected over a lifetime. The whole matter is absolutely shameful.

As for those mysterious "non-existent" assistants, both were later located. However, no newspaper, that I know of, published an apology for their accusations that these two people had been nothing but fiction.

This whole case tells us much of the danger of politics infecting science. Science should be pursued for the truth - whatever that is. No-one should try to impose the answer they want onto the world - or the data. Burt's opponents strongly believed that environment was all. Yet, Burt's studies showed IQ to be almost entirely hereditary. Instead of performing experiments of their own to investigate the matter - they set about with ad hominem attacks - to destroy his reputation and then, upon his death, one of them destroyed his lifework and data.

Politics should have no part in science. That which is not purely scientific should not be considered - for when it is, the truth is murdered.

Ultimately, Burt's conclusions have been verified by five other independent studies which all came to the exact same conclusion he had. There seems to be little mileage, therefore, in the idea that he was nothing but a fraud. He had, after all, stated the right answer.

So, the next time you see a scientist - or other seeker of the truth - being publicly vilified, look at who is doing the accusing - and ask why? Is it science or politics that drives them? If it is the latter, then you should have a pretty good idea of where the truth actually lies.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen 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, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Left-handedness and divergent thinking

My son, Ainan, 7, is left-handed. Curious to what degree left-handedness may contribute to his creative, prodigious gifts, I have been doing some research. What I have found is of interest to any parent of a left-handed person, anyone who is left-handed, or anyone who is interested in the nature of giftedness, talent and genius.

A study by Dr. Stanley Coren entitled: "Differences in Divergent Thinking as a Function of Handedness and Sex" in The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 108, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 311-325 doi:10.2307/1422892 looked into the matter of whether left-handedness had any association with divergent thinking, and how this was correlated with the sex of the left-handed person.

Various tests were administered to the subjects. Test 1 concerned Alternate Uses; test 2 was of Object Synthesis and Test 3 was of Ideational Flexibility. The final test was a test of convergent thinking (traditionally measured by IQ tests).

There was no correlation between left-handedness and performance on the Alternate Uses test. However, on the second and third tests (which were both measures of kinds of divergent thinking), there was a strong, positive correlation between left-handedness and performance in the test. Interestingly, the more left-handed (or sinistral, as it is termed, scientifically) the subject the better their performance in these tests. The fourth test of convergent thinking was also revealing in that there was no benefit to sinistrality in this test: subjects of both left and right-handedness performed similarly.

This experiment shows that left-handers have a distinct advantage in tasks involving divergent thinking, compared to right-handers - but show no difference in their ability to handle convergent tasks.

What, practically speaking does this mean? Well, one conclusion, that is glaring for me, is that conventional tests of ability of left-handed kids, might overlook their gifts. You see, IQ tests only address convergent thinking ability. Left-handers have a strength in divergent thinking. Thus testing for gifted programmes and the like would tend to underestimate the left-handed children because their strength - divergent thinking - will not reveal itself in conventional testing. Thus a gifted child, in the truest sense of the word, might be overlooked if they are left-handed, for they will have a hidden talent, not obvious to the conventional tests.

This evidence that left-handed people are stronger in divergent thinking agrees perfectly with what I have observed in Ainan since his birth. He has a very strong aptitude for divergent thinking (allied to a very strong aptitude for convergent thinking, too, I might add). This divergence of thinking shows itself in everything that he does - he is always coming up with new ideas and new ways and new understandings, while learning, observing or just thinking aloud to me.

Interestingly, history has many examples of good divergent thinkers who were left-handed: Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Picasso, and H.G. Wells, for instance. It is telling that the two greatest physicists of all time, should both have been left-handed. Curious, that.

So, if your child is left-handed, do not be concerned, be happy - or even excited. Left-handedness confers a strength in divergent thinking that equips the gifted child to think in new and better ways. Such a child may grow up to do many things not open to the conventionally gifted child whose strength is convergent thinking alone.

By the way, Stanley Coren's study showed NO correlation between handedness and divergent thinking for girls. This correlation only applied to the boys.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 7 years and 8 months, a scientific child prodigy, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 4 years and 1 month, or Tiarnan, 18 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, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, gifted adults, and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Of Genius, Wealth and Poverty

We live in a world that worships money - and accords both respect and awe to those able to accumulate vast quantities of this magical stuff. Many, indeed, confuse "wealthy", with "brilliant". Yet, is this conflation a necessary truth?

There are many ways to become wealthy and not all of them involve great brilliance - in fact, most of them involve little more than doing what someone else has done, before, with a better marketing plan in place. I could say, "Look at Microsoft.", but I won't. In short, being rich does not mean being a genius. Nor does its corrollary apply: being poor does not mean one is dumb.

This latter point is essential to grasp. You see, I have recently received a letter from an American pointing out that, in her country, the poor are discounted on the issue of giftedness: no-one believes that a gifted child could emerge from a poor family - and so they are often overlooked. This is a very odd take on the issue of giftedness and shows that those who think so are unaware that wealth and IQ are not strongly correlated. There are rich bright people, yes - but there are also dumb rich people - and poor bright people - and poor dumb people (perhaps not the best combination, that one).

Giftedness is not a measure of wealth - it is a measure of mind - and great minds may emerge in the most unpromising of circumstances. History can teach us much here. I have already written of Carl Friedrich Gauss - a great child prodigy and a great genius level mathematician. What I did not stress enough, perhaps, was that his family were a very poor one. His father was a stone mason - a manual worker - and had the limited resources one expects of manual workers in most societies. Yet, this did not stop the young Gauss from being born a prodigy, and turning out to be the "greatest mathematician of his Age", according to many of his peers.

Another great mathematician, born in poverty, was Srinavasa Ramanujan. Born in 1887 in abject circumstances, he nursed a brilliance for mathematics by his own private efforts. He only emerged into prominence on writing a letter to G.H Hardy, the Cambridge mathematician, enclosing 120 mathematical statements of his own devising. Hardy, rather open-mindedly, invited him to Cambridge and the great young genius, was recognized. We all have something to thank him for. His work (the partition theory) is behind the operations of automatic teller machines (ATMs) and without his ideas, we would not be able to get a hold of our funds, so readily.

Both of these great men, were born poor - and both became great mathematical geniuses. Their poverty did not prevent them from being great. There are many such cases throughout history. Poverty does not connote stupidity - and wealth does not connote genius (I could bore you with cases of stupid, rich people but the living ones would sue and the dead ones are too uninteresting to bother with.)

So, to my American reader, I would like to send assurance that gifted people can, do and have emerged from poor backgrounds - and would like to urge those in America, who seek to identify gifted people, to be more open-minded in their pursuit of them. Do not assume intelligence in a rich kid - or dumbness in a poor one. Have an open mind when evaluating each and every one. For intelligence, creativity and genius, may emerge from any background, rich or poor.

(If you would like to read 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, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

IQ and testosterone in children

When most people hear the word testosterone, they think of strength, power and virility. Images might come to mind of athletic muscular men and women might think of handsome chisel jawed figures. These are all, we are led to believe, positive images associated with testosterone - but is testosterone the undiluted "good" that we think it is?

We all know that too much testosterone can lead to an angry, violent disposition - as revealed in the recent murder-suicide by the well known wrestler, Chris Benoit, in whose body steroids were found. So testosterone has its dark side. Yet, there are other drawbacks to testosterone that are not widely known - indeed, some have only been recently observed.

Have a think about this: what would you think would be the influence of testosterone on IQ and intelligence in children? Would more testosterone mean a brighter child? Would less testosterone mean a dimmer child?

A varied group of scientists decided to answer this question and published their results in their paper: Intelligence and salivary testosterone levels in prepubertal children by
Daniela Ostatníková, Peter Celec, Zdeněk Putz, Július Hodosy, Filip Schmidt, Jolana Laznibatová and Matúš Kúdela.

Most of these researchers are from Comenius University in Bratislava in the Slovak Republic, hence their unfamiliar names.

Testosterone has long been believed to influence intellectual function - and determine the sex differences in cognitive abilities between genders. Their study sought to tease out the truth to these matters.

They took 284 prepubertal children aged 6 to 9 years old of both sexes and took samples of their salivary testosterone levels. The children formed three groups: 107 gifted children with IQs above 130; 100 children of average intelligence (IQ 70 to 130) and 77 mentally challenged/retarded children with IQs below 70.

Unexpectedly, a commonality was found between the low IQ children and the high IQ children. Both the low IQ and the high IQ children had LOW LEVELS OF TESTOSTERONE. The children with high levels of testosterone fell into the average range of intelligence. These differences were statistically significant.

There was no significant difference between the high IQ and low IQ groups' concentration of testosterone.

Please note that these results apply only to the boys: the girls showed no significant differences in testosterone between any of the groups.

The researchers did not offer an explanation as to why the low and high IQ groups gave the same result - nor why high testosterone should connote average intelligence. The matter needs further investigation.

I think these results are interesting and have application in our understanding of the world. High testosterone males are usually easy to recognize - but they are not usually outstanding intellectually - now we have a study that gives us an insight into the situation, even if it doesn't yet provide an explanation.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, and his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and no months, and 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, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)

The universality of intelligence

There is a person called Koko who is very special in a way that might surprise you.

Now Koko has a curious disability - being unable to speak, but can use 400 signs of American Sign Language. Koko has an interesting sense of humour and makes jokes and rhymes using these signs. Koko even uses metaphor, sometimes - all in Sign Language. So, although unable to speak, Koko can communicate.

Koko's IQ is not what you might call gifted - and so may not seem a suitable subject for this blog. Koko's IQ regularly tests at around 80. You might not think much of that - but I do. You see, Koko is a gorilla.

Did that surprise you? Koko is more intelligent than many humans - for an IQ of 80 is not actually all that low, when you consider that the average for the United States is 98 (and the average for France 94). There are even countries on Earth, populated with humans, whose IQs average in the 60s and 70s. Thus Koko is more intelligent than many humans. Yet, Koko is not free, in the sense, of being self-determining. Shouldn't Koko, whose IQ is well into the human range, have rights just like those other primates - the humans?

You should note that the IQ tests used on Koko are normal, human IQ tests for which no adjustment has been made for the differences between gorilla and human culture. Given this disadvantage, perhaps a culture fair test, that took account of what it means to be a gorilla, might actually produce a higher score. I would be surprised if this did not, in fact, occur.

Koko is a thinking being with a rich life of thought. Yet, most people would dismiss him (her?) as "just an ape". I think it is time to revisit our ideas of what is intelligent - and who - and think a little more clearly about how we treat our fellow "animals" on this planet. Koko would probably make a very interesting person to talk to - what with his (her?) different perspective, allied to fluency in a human language - American Sign Language.

Koko's abilities also lead us to ask: what is the role of education in the development of the human? Koko has been educated by Francine Patterson, since 1972 - and the results are incredible. If an educational programme can do this for a gorilla, what other animals, in our environment, could attain human level performance? In the light of this, are we humans fair, kind and reasonable in our conduct towards animals in general? These are uncomfortable questions but they have to be asked. If all that separates us and our near relatives is a decent education, then we have really, really, really, not been behaving well towards our kindred.

Perhaps it is not the place to point this out, but I think I should. A gorilla, if educated, can perform in the human intellectual range. Yet, gorillas are still considered FOOD for some people in this world. Now, that really is an awful thought.

By writing this post, today, perhaps I can enlarge people's respect for our fellow animals - and perhaps cause some of you to think about what it means to be human - and ask how we got that way in the first place. After all, a gorilla can go pretty far to becoming "human" by just being given the chance to grow, intellectually. There is a very profound lesson in that.

(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, adult genius, baby genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)

Speed of processing and exams

Exams try to measure the ability of students but, they fail, in many respects. Today I will look at one way in which they fail.

Imagine you have two candidates both of whom have scored equally well in an exam. Are both candidates therefore equal in ability? A traditional view of exams would say so, but there is something which the exam conditions are not able to determine. That is: how fast do the candidates think?

Now, it is obvious that the speed with which someone thinks is very closely related to any true measure of their intelligence. An intelligent person thinks faster than a less intelligent person. In the real world, this will mean that they will solve problems faster than others, which in many roles in life, may have critical implications - as I have addressed before, in another post. So the speed of processing is of real world importance. Yet, it is not really captured by exams.

Exams make an attempt to capture the speed of processing of a candidate by setting a time limit. There is, traditionally, a fixed time allowed to complete the examination. Now, you might think this addresses the issue of speed of processing - but it does not. You see, all it does is set a lower limit of speed that must be met to complete the exam. In other words, it cuts off the lowest portion of ability level, but it does nothing to measure the upper strata of ability. You see a very bright student might finish the exam long before the time limit is up - yet the exam system will neither measure nor reward this speed of processing. The exam conditions will not be able to discriminate between the fast student and the average student.

Is this important? I think it is for, in the real world, the faster thinker, will often be more effective in many roles. Their speed of thinking may prove critical to many of life's endeavours - yet an examination, with a fixed time limit, will never allow you to decide who is the faster of two candidates. Faster implies more intelligent - so exams are not really the best measure of distinguishing between levels of intelligence of candidates.

Obviously, exams distinguish on the basis of the final mark - and that is used as a proxy for intelligence, implicitly, by the academic systems of the world - but it overlooks the vital fact that two candidates who get the same mark, may be very different, in truth. One may think fast, the other may think at an average speed. One may, in fact, be much more intelligent than the other - but the mark will never determine that.

I will give you an example from the real world. Ainan, my son, recently took two exam papers. One of them was one and a quarter hours long. Yet, Ainan completed this in forty-three minutes. After that time, he did not write anything more on the paper, having addressed all the questions. The other paper was one hour long. After thirty-five minutes, Ainan had completed this paper, too.

Now, imagine that another candidate gets the exact same resultant mark as Ainan - but that candidate took exactly one and a quarter hours for the one and a quarter hour paper and one hour for the one hour paper. In the eyes of the academic system, both candidates performed identically - but in actual fact, Ainan was about twice as fast as the other candidate. Implicitly, therefore, Ainan is more intelligent than the other candidate of the same mark, since he is able to solve twice as many problems in the same time, as the other candidate. Yet, no account is made of this in the examining system - and it will be overlooked.

So, don't imagine that all people of the same grade in an exam are the same in ability. They are not - for each would have taken a different time to reach that grade - and would, therefore, have differing levels of inherent processing speed and consequent intelligence.

Exams, with a fixed time limit, establish a lower threshold of performance - and indicate that performance could not have been lower than that threshold - but they do NOT indicate the true heights of which a candidate is capable.

There is one caveat to all of this. In many roles in life, the speed of processing does make a real world difference and is of great importance. I would like to see a policeman who thinks quickly, not slowly - and similarly for an air traffic controller, for instance. Sluggishness, in such roles, could lead to real world danger. There are many such examples that I could provide. However, there are also roles in life in which the speed of processing does not matter. These are roles in which time is not of particular importance and all that matters is that the right answer is eventually reached. The writing of a book might come into this category (though the writing of journalism rewards speed of processing) - or the performance of scientific research (though if you are slow you won't be first and may not succeed in building a reputation and career).

Thus, exams measure performance over a fixed time. They do not measure absolute performance, however, for people will differ in the time taken to achieve a particular level of performance - and therefore differ in true ability. This means that exams, as presently formulated, do not distinguish well between different levels of intelligence: they miss the upper ranges.

This observation is, of course, my thinking alone.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, sixteen 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 children, and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)

High IQ promotes longevity

A high IQ confers many advantages on the possessor but perhaps the most valuable, in the long run, is that of a long life.

A UK study on 2,200 participants from Aberdeen, Scotland who took the 11-plus IQ examination in 1932, has thrown up some interesting correlations between IQ and ultimate longevity. The correlation is very strong indeed, compared to other factors which influence longevity.

The basic finding is that the better the child did in an IQ test in 1932, the more likely they were to survive until 76. The difference was marked between those of low IQ and those of higher IQ. A woman who scored one standard deviation above the norm, at IQ 115 in 1932, was TWICE as likely to survive to 76 as a woman who scored one standard deviation below the norm, at an IQ of 85. The correlation with men was not so strong, however, the difference in likelihood of survival in the same instance being 32% in favour of the IQ 115 male.

Now, the researchers were well aware of the known correlation between social status and health - and so this was accounted for in their analysis. Even accounting for the different occupations of the father and the attendant wealth differentials and differences in overcrowding in the households, the correlation remained intact: high IQ, as an independent variable, confers longevity on its possessor.

It is impossible with this information alone to isolate the reason for this correlation. It is likely to involve both genetics and lifestyle factors. Quite simply the high IQ person may have better genes in general and this could be responsible for promoting their health and longevity. There is also the likelihood that the higher IQ person is more likely to avoid such unhealthful habits as smoking, drinking to excess and the like - as well as adopting better dietary and lifestyle practices in general.

Whatever the ultimate cause of the correlation, the fact remains that the brighter your child (or you, are), the longer they are likely to live, INDEPENDENT OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS. A factor two difference in likelihood of survival for women, with only a one standard deviation IQ advantage above the norm is an advantage of huge dimensions. Most health practices produce relatively small increases in chances of survival: that is the biggest advantage I have ever noted, in my reading, for a single influence. Remarkable.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, sixteen 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.)

IQ and Wealth: Zagorsky study.

Are IQ and wealth related? Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State University has studied the matter and come up with some surprising conclusions.

In 1979, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NSLY) began under the guidance of the Ohio State Center for Human Resource Research - and funded by the National Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 7,403 participants have been repeatedly questioned and studied over the years and the data trawled for interesting correlations.

Zagorsky thought to use the data to answer an interesting question: do you have to be smart to be rich? His answer is rather counter-intuitive.

Firstly, his data confirmed the common view that the smarter you are the more you earn. For every IQ point above 100, his cohort earned between $202 and $616 more per year. This equated to a person of IQ 130 earning between $6,000 to $18,500 a year more than their average counterpart at IQ 100. So were the smart ones wealthier? Did they have greater net worth? Were they freer of financial difficulties?

Rather peculiarly, they weren't. No strong correlation between wealth and intelligence was found. Indeed the smart were more prone to financial imprudence than the ones who were just slightly above average. As a measure of financial difficulties he looked at the failure to pay bills; make credit card payments; max out credit cards or become bankrupt. The smartest ones still got themselves into trouble in these ways. For instance, 11 per cent of people of IQ over 125 had missed credit card payments; 6 per cent had maxed out their cards. Though smart, they were not immune to carelessness with their finances.

So, what was the result of all this? Despite earning less than the most gifted in the cohort, those of average or slightly below average intelligence were as competent at accumulating wealth. Zagorsky's tentative conclusion - which he is investigating further - is that although the bright EARN more, they SAVE less.

What lessons can gifted parents get from this? Well, apart from teaching one's children the value of saving, it might be healthy to alter an expectation that many parents have of their gifted children: that they will be "well-off". This is not necessarily the case at all. It is partly because some of the professions that draw gifted children are not well-remunerated. University Professors, for instance, in most cultures, are not well-paid. Yet, they are among the most gifted of their societies.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and five months, a scientific child prodigy, and his gifted brothers, 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, adult genius, baby genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children. Thanks.)

Taking several IQ tests.

From some of the comments I see all over the internet, it is clear that some parents of gifted children - or non-gifted children - get their children to take several IQ tests. I even hear of children being tested every six months or so. Is this a useful practice and what are the dangers?

Well, IQ is supposed to be quite stable throughout life, that is, it shouldn't change much. So, it does seem unnecessary to keep on taking tests. In some cases the parents appear to have children who are less than official cut-offs for gifted programmes - perhaps they are hoping that a "good" test, will take them over the threshold. In others, there seems to be a perception that the child's progress needs to be tracked in this way.

Whatever the motivation for this repeated testing, there is a common danger, which posts also reveal. There is a tendency among some school systems and a large number of professionals to judge the child on the LOWEST test result. I find this absurd, for it has no sound reasoning behind it. They seem to think that the child's "true" ability is measured by their least performance. This doesn't make sense. There are many reasons why a child could under-perform on a particular day: tired, bored, unmotivated, resistant to the test, ill - etc. There are any number of reasons why under-performance could occur - but what reasons could there be for OVER-performance? What is going to make a child perform above the level of their intelligence? Nothing at all - unless they have done a particular test before, quite recently, in which case there will be an increase from familiarity with the test. (Which is why frequent testing on a particular instrument is frowned upon - and often discounted.) Apart from this possible influence, there is nothing that can make a child do better than they should have done - but there are many things that could make a child under-perform.

Given this background, it is clear that those practitioners and school systems that insist on judging a child on the lowest test result are guilty of an injustice. Their reasoning does not make sense. A child's true ability will be closer to the HIGHEST test result obtained - unless that test result was obtained from multiple testing of the same instrument in quick succession (which could raise it a little, but not much).

So, if you have more than one IQ test result and a school system is judging your child - point out the logic above. A child can easily under-perform - but there is just no way they can over-perform.

Then again, if they don't listen to you and you continue to test multiply it is clear that you will decrease the lowest test result obtained - because you will have more chance of catching your child on an off day. Thus the more frequently you test, the more results you will get - and the more chance you will have that one of them will be unusually low, for whatever reason. Ironically, therefore, those who test their child multiply are exposing their child to the risk of being underestimated.

On "All-rounders" and specialists

Some gifted children are good at everything. They shine at whatever they attempt. Others seem handcrafted by some divine power, for one task and one task alone - a gift so narrow it has but a single name. Why is this so?

Well, one need only begin to think about what it means to be gifted. Each gift must be supported by a neural network. It would seem a fair proposal that those who have a greater gift must have a greater number of or complexity of neurons supporting that greater gift. There lies the problem. Each gift we possess competes with every other gift for space in our brains. Each operation of our very complex bodies is co-ordinated in some manner or degree by a part of our brain. Some of these brain functions are non-negotiable basic life support functions. They cannot be given up for another purpose. Therefore, after all the brain space is allotted, one could conclude that the space available for the cultivation of gifts may be more limited than one might suppose. Each gift is reflected in allotted brain space. A range of gifts would require a range of allotments. At some point, these gifts would begin to compete with each other for space - unless they have overlapping functions that might allow dual use of space in some way.

So how is it that some people have many gifts - and others have but one? (Not forgetting that many people appear to have no distinctive gift at all.) It could all be down to brain size and the distribution of brain space among gifts. Some people have larger brains than others. My own family, for instance, contains many people with fairly large heads - and so, presumably larger than usual brains. There is, in fact, a known positive correlation between brain size and IQ (which I could rediscover and post another time). Yet, that is not the whole story. Perhaps a great gift - a truly great gift - may require too much of the available brain space to support and so might compromise other areas of intellectual function to accommodate it - unless, of course, the brain were unusually large and able to make accommodation for all demands. However, it is clear, in the case in which a great gift exists in a brain that does not have enough space to accommodate any or many other gifts, that there would have to be compromises in other areas. Thus, there would arise people who are outstanding in some respects - truly great - but somewhat more limited in others, simply because of inadequate mental resources to cope with all demands.

The reasoning, so far, has been my own. The question is: can we observe such people in the world? Are there people of great gift who are limited in other ways? Without having to name anyone in particular, we all have the sense that this is so - from having met people who partially or wholly represent this phenomenon. We all know of a mathematically gifted person who was hopeless with anything literary - or the literary type who was hopeless mathematically. Indeed, this type of one sided person seems to be more common in my childhood memories of school than the "all-rounder". I was an all-rounder - and remain so - but there were few of us in my school, very few.

Why do I post on this? Well, a searcher arrived on my site today with the search: "Training children to be all-rounders". I have stated my reasoning above so that I might observe, now, that training a child to be an all-rounder - who isn't naturally one, by dint of the possession of a plenitude of neural resources - may involve compromises. It is possible that, in becoming an all-rounder, they might end up less good at the one thing they would have been really good at, if they had been left alone. The brain's resources are logically limited, after all. Perhaps it is better to let the inclinations of the child guide his or her education. Deep down, every child knows if they are a naturally endowed "all-rounder" or whether it is better for them to dig a single deep furrow, at which they might shine above all others.

Just as I don't believe that any gifted child can be a genius at any one thing, I don't believe that any gifted child can be an all-rounder, either. The capacities that lead to these results are, I believe, from what I have observed in the world around me, essentially innate. The "training" that this searcher sought should always, therefore, be directed to nurture whatever is natural in that child. Careful observation of the child should be enough to determine whether they naturally lean to specialization or generalization. The issue should definitely not be forced. From my argument above, it may even cause a variety of harm to do so: for the brain might be forced to make compromises in the distribution of resources which are not, ultimately, beneficial.

Best wishes, all, on raising your children as they are meant to be raised: according to their individual needs.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, 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 children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)

Singapore's experience of the gifted

I came across a strange criticism on the internet, recently, regarding Singapore that I wish to comment on. This commenter - who generally came across as more than a little rabid - said that Singapore had little experience of the gifted - because it had only 4 million people...so basically what would they know?

I thought this comment very interesting for what it revealed about the limited understanding of giftedness of the commenter. Even profound gift at its theoretical prevalance of one in a million would be present in a population of four million. Yet, profound gift is actually more common than its theoretical prevalence - several times more common, at least. Therefore gifts of all dimensions would be present in a population of "only 4 million". Then again there is the fact that Singapore's IQ curve is not centred on 98 like the US (it was an American commenting owing to cultural references made by him or her), or 100 like the UK - but on 104. This is significant. It means that the gifted will, if the curve is otherwise as the IQ curves of other countries are, be much more common, because of the shift to the right of the curve. This means that Singapore will have proportionately MORE gifted people in its "only 4 million" population, than expected.

That, however, is just the beginning of the issue. For not only will more gifted people be present in the Singaporean population - but, culturally, more is done to meet their needs and become aware of those needs. You see, Singapore has a dedicated branch of the Ministry of Education catering solely to gifted children: The Gifted Education Branch. Their sole purpose is to understand and enable gifted children to become what they may. This is a government that has decided to open doors for gifted children - at least, that is the stated purpose of the organization and we are only just beginning to experience the reality of what they can actually achieve - a matter on which we keep an open mind. We will see how effective it really is - but that is another issue. The fact remains that there is a Department dedicated to the gifted - dedicated to understanding them and dedicated to enabling them. Can the USA say that? No. Can the UK say that? No. In fact, off the top of my head I know of no other country which can say that they have a dedicated branch of government devoted to the gifted. That says something. Does it say this country has "Little or no experience of the gifted"...err, no. On the contrary, it says that this country has more experience of the gifted than is usual - much more.

In a country that ignores its gifted and their needs - which appears to be the case at a central government level in not only the US and the UK but probably most, if not all, developed economies - that country will have little knowledge and experience of the gifted - for they are not looking at them as a constituency that needs individual attention; they are not thinking of their nature or their needs - and so they will not know of them. In short, they will be blind to the gifted within them, for they have never looked to see them. That, in fact, is a country which has "little or no experience of the gifted". Oddly, that situation pertains to the very country in which the commenter resides - and not the one that he criticizes.

His argument was basically that a country like Singapore, that had so few people, could not possibly know what a gifted child was - because they didn't have enough people to have any. Statistically, that is nonsense, of course - since four million is more than enough to encompass the variety of human types there are - and to do so amply if the IQ curve is actually centred on a higher than usual point, which it is, at 104.

That Singapore will have fewer gifted children, numerically, than a country almost two orders of magnitude greater in size is obvious - but that it would lack experience of the gifted simply because the other had more of them, is lacking in sense.

Singapore is a country without natural resources. Its only resource is its people. It is this background against which one can understand its wish to understand and cater for the gifted within: for those children are the greatest resource they have.

Singapore knows this; none of the other countries I have mentioned does. So who, then, has "little or no experience of the gifted."?

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, fourteen 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 children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)

William James Sidis and Ratio IQ

William James Sidis was a child prodigy. Indeed, he was one of the greatest child prodigies ever recorded. Yet, what would happen to him today? Would the magnitude of his gifts be recognized were he tested by modern psychometricians?

The short answer is a definite no. You see estimates of William James Sidis ratio IQ place it at least 250 to 300. This might even be conservative in some ways, if you look closely at his life - but nevertheless, this is a significant IQ figure. But what would happen if he was tested by modern IQ tests? They would grossly underestimate him - and here is why. Modern tests tend to have a ceiling of a deviation IQ of 160. Ceiling effects will actually depress most gifted people's scores. Everyone has a different pattern of peaks in their subtests - and these peaks will be cut off at varying points by the test limit. Some subtests may show weaknesses - and these will lower the overall score. In fact, if William James Sidis took a modern IQ test he may not have even got a score of 160 - depending on his pattern of strengths and weaknesses, he may have had a depressed score of 150 or 140 or any other number below 160.

So, a psychologist testing Sidis today would most probably completely miss the magnitude of his gifts, in terms of a test result - because the test is incapable of measuring his gifts, as they truly are - but it is only capable of underestimating them, to an unknown degree. Of course, the same applies to any extremely gifted child today. The IQ tests are only capable of underestimating and not of measuring such children.

I do not know why, as a profession, the designers of such tests have decided to introduce this limit to the tests. Perhaps it is an economic decision: it simply wasn't thought worth having a test with a long tail with all the work that would require for only a relatively few test subjects to benefit from. Perhaps that is what it comes down to. Or perhaps scoring high in such a test is thought enough - perhaps the actual truth of the situation is not regarded as important.

Anyway, this situation with Sidis and all even remotely like him - the extremely gifted - points us to an unavoidable conclusion: ratio IQs remain valuable and should be reinstated as one of the tools of estimation of a child's intelligence.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three and Tiarnan, fourteen 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.)