The secret of being good at Science.

Ainan is becoming pithy in his remarks, these days. He has a growing tendency to summarize his thought, in catchy sentences. I see this as an emergent writer, in him, expressing his customary thoughts, in more elegant ways.

A couple of weeks ago, he observed to me:

“In science, the answer is easy, it is the question that is hard.”

I thought this both truthful and well-expressed, for it embodied one of the secrets of being a good scientist: the truly rare ability is not to be able to answer questions put to you, but to be able to ask questions no-one else had thought of doing so. In short, Ainan was noting that the real genius of science, is in the question. Relatively few people understand this. In popular culture it is the kid who has all the answers, who is revered as a “genius”. What they don’t realize is that the real genius is the kid who asks questions no-one else had thought of.

I like the way Ainan is developing. In his early days it did seem that he might end up very focussed on one thing: Chemistry. I thought, at the time, that that would be rather limiting. Yet, now, it seems, he is developing more in the model of my own life: growing in many areas, at once and becoming distinctly multi-talented. This is much more healthy I feel. It will also give him many more options, in life, for what he might choose to do, professionally. I think this is likelier to lead to personal fulfilment, than only have one area to “choose” from.

Ainan’s remark calls to mind when he was between four and six. In this time, he was filled with questions – sometimes unanswerable ones. For me, this avalanche of insightful questions was an irrefutable indicator that a very special thinker was growing behind his curious eyes. As Ainan himself has now noted, it was his QUESTIONS, that I found most startling, not the fact that he was able to answer those put to him. Each question is a creative act, for it involves looking at the world and finding something missing: understanding of some aspect, or phenomenon. To ask the right questions, first one must be able to see the world as it is and note what cannot be immediately explained within common knowledge. In so doing, one finds questions that others had overlooked. Yet, the foundation of this is first to see the world truly as it is and not as it is supposed to be – and that is an art many never master. Perhaps some children are inherently good at it, not yet having been indoctrinated into a particular world view and so more able to see what is truly there and, therefore, to wonder about it, as it is and ask why it should be.

Perhaps to make a good scientist, one just has to preserve the child within and see all as it is, and not as common culture wishes it to be seen.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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

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

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

The importance of a public platform.

It has long puzzled me as to why the world is run by people who seem dumber than certain others. There are many very bright people, who could, perhaps, provide solutions to some of the world’s problems, and yet, who never – or rarely - get heard. The problem here is simple: having ideas and having a platform are two different things. It is quite possible – even probable – to be a person of ideas, but not to be gifted with a platform from which to voice them.

It seems likely to me, that the kind of person who is good at having ideas...the “genius”...is probably also likely to be poor at the people skills that might help him or her build a public platform, from which to influence people and the course of the world. Thus, it is that we have the present situation in which people who don’t seem very bright (to me and, no doubt, to lots of others, too), end up in positions of great power and influence, whilst others, who are much brighter, never really reach public attention and, therefore, have little influence.

From my point of view, it seems easier to have good, interesting and useful ideas, than it does to acquire a powerful platform from which to voice them. This, of course, means that the ideas in question may never reach their potential for beneficial influence on the world. Part of the problem is that the international news media is not really interested in ideas, nowadays – they are interested in “celebrity” (which is, of course, the antithesis of those who have ideas). Thus, anyone with an interesting idea will find that, in general, the news media have no interest in covering it. This, of course, greatly restricts the potential range of influence of the idea in question. Such an idea might end up in an academic journal – but, such journals often have such small circulations, that very few people, indeed, will ever read it. In fact, an article published in a journal often has to be “discovered”, before it can be of much influence. By this, I mean, that it must come to the attention of a broader base of academics and other interested parties, perhaps through word of mouth, from the few who have actually read it. This is an uncertain process and may not happen for years after the publication of an article.

Publishing in academic journals is not, in general, a powerful enough platform to maximize the influence of an idea. It is only when, somehow, the idea “catches on” and is propelled into public consciousness through the rare occasions on which mass media DO cover an idea, that it may reach its potential for influence.

Some few thinkers, are fortunate enough to have become sufficiently famous such that their every utterance is covered in the international media: an obvious example would be Stephen Hawking, who need only mouth an opinion, to generate coverage. This phenomenon, however, has nothing to do with ideas, or the media being interested in them, but is to do with celebrity. Were Stephen Hawking not a celebrity, no-one would be listening to him, in any way, or to any degree, at all: his thoughts would be forever unknown.

Yet, given Stephen Hawking’s public platform it is quite clear that he is able to attempt to influence the course of events, by raising awareness of matters which interest him. This is a great power and it is one that would prove more valuable still in the hands of others (who shall probably never have it), who have many ideas, but little opportunity to catch attention with them.

One happy development, for those with ideas, who seek to influence, is the advent of the Internet for it offers the means to convey an idea, to the world, without any need for an intermediary. Of course, the fact that everyone now has this power, means that the Internet is cluttered with the thoughts of hundreds of millions of people – and so ideas are now hard to notice, for a different reason: they get lost in the chatter. Yet, there is hope. The Internet offers at least a basic platform to all who have a thought to speak. In the long term, perhaps, interesting ideas have a chance of being noticed and promulgated about the world, hopefully gaining them some kind of influence. I only hope that the Internet endures to allow these ideas to be discovered and implemented in due course.

Even with the Internet, however, the truth remains that those we come to know of as thinkers are not necessarily the best thinkers. They are, in fact, those people who have developed, for themselves, the best platforms. Our view, therefore, of whom the world’s “great” thinkers are, is formed almost entirely by the ranks of those who have secured a platform, for themselves, either through their own efforts, or some variety of inheritance of fame or influence. It seems likely to me, however, that many of the world’s greatest, most interesting and potentially most important thinkers, do not have such platforms and so their thoughts go relatively unnoticed, their work of less influence, not through any lack of merits, but through a lack of opportunity to be widely heard. In time, some in this category may come to be known and their work may finally become influential – but that is a slow and haphazard process. In the meantime, the media will entertain us with the “thoughts” of those who have good platforms and distract us from the fact that there might be many others, unheard, out there, with better ideas to offer.

As a final thought, one has to ask: are the world's political leaders truly the best the world has to offer? I find it hard to believe. A recent example that leads me to question the quality of leaders and potential leaders, is Rick Perry's refusal to believe in man made global warming, despite the fact that the science behind it, is very simple indeed. To my mind, this makes him dim of wit and unsuited to any high office - yet, there he is running for leadership of the Republicans and potentially a future President of the USA. He is an example of a man of little substance, who is good at building a platform for himself. There are, I am sure, many better thinkers, who would offer more to the USA, as a leader, than Rick Perry is able to offer, who simply don't have the right platform. They are good at thinking, but not necessarily good at self-promotion.

The world would benefit from an inversion here. All those who are good at thinking but poor at self-promotion and platform building, should be thrust to the fore - and all those who are good at self promotion and platform building, but not so strong at actual thinking, should be steadfastly ignored. Were this so, we would have a world we would want to live in: a world that is solving its problems and making progress towards a better state.

In the meantime, think carefully about how you cast your vote: are you voting for an excellent thinker, or an excellent platform builder (who is not so good at thinking)? It would be wise to distinguish the two, for only the true thinker is likely to have the mental wherewithal, to solve the world's problems. Of course, rarely, the two are one: a good thinker has a good platform. I wish that were always so.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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

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

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

It puzzles me how often the parents of gifted children are assailed with the accusation of being "pushy" parents. I marvel at the essential incomprehension of the gifted situation this reveals. To be brief, it is impossible to push a child to exceed their limits and achieve something that is not in them.

A gifted child is not pushed into being a gifted child. It is an innate condition, as inherent as the colour of their eyes. It is absurd to accuse the parents of somehow creating this situation by being demanding. Yet, so often, the parents of gifted children hear this assumption wielded in their general direction.

There is a failure to understand the need for intrinsic - and not extrinsic - motivation when it comes to a gifted child, particularly a prodigious one. It is absolutely impossible, in my opinion, to create a prodigious child from one who is not naturally given to be so. The mental qualities of such a child are either in the child or not. One particular quality that must be present, if anything worthwhile is to be achieved, is that of intrinsic motivation. By this, I mean that the child must be motivated, of their own accord, to seek understanding of the subject matter of their interest. The drive to learn must come from the child. I see no real possibility of a prodigious child coming out of an extrinsic learning situation, in which the motivation to learn comes from external factors. So, I think it impossible that a parent (the extrinsic factor) could ever drive a child to become prodigious. The child must already be becoming prodigious of their own accord, driven by their own intrinsic motivations and founded on their own inherent abilities.

It is clear that those who accuse the parents of prodigies of being pushy, actually know nothing about prodigies. If they did, they would understand that it is the child, in such a situation, who does the driving.

Ainan often bugs me to do something with him. It is not what you might imagine. It is not bugging me to get him a toy, or play a game with him. He bugs me to get me to sit down with him and teach him science. He nags me to provide him with scientific stimulation. Anyone who had ever witnessed this, would, at once, have a rather different view of the origin of prodigies and gifted children, than is commonly - and wrongly - supposed. The secret of a child's gift, is in the child themselves. Their gift emerges from their own innate nature. It is not imposed on them from without. They are not a "tabula rasa". They have certain gifts and predispositions at birth and these are fostered by the child themselves, if they are truly destined to become something special. The parent can only provide what the child makes clear, by their actions, nature and requests, that they need. The rest, largely, is up to the child themselves. They must have the ability within them, to excel, but they must also have the drive to do so. It must be something that they really want for themselves. It cannot be imposed on them from without.

Thus, the model many people have in their minds of a gifted child moulded by "pushy parents" into becoming something that they otherwise would never have been is utter nonsense. It is, in fact, an impossibility. If the child is not intrinsically motivated to tread the path that has been chosen, there is no way on earth that they are going to be able to do so. Extrinsic motivations are never going to be strong enough to create the kind of child we come to know as a prodigy. Nor, I would suggest, are they strong enough to engender a gifted child of any kind. There is a reason why a child is called "gifted" - and that is because it is as if a special quality has been bestowed on them, at conception. They are in possession of a gift. It is not something that can be imposed from without, by force of will. It is there, or it is not. The child has received a gift, at conception, or they have not.

Rather than continuing to misunderstand the parents of gifted children, society would do better to enquire what those parents need for their children, to give them what they most require, to take them where they should go and become what they should be.

All parents have a great responsibility to the future of our society. I would suggest that the parents of gifted children have a greater responsibility given the potential of their charges. It seems a pity to assail them with misunderstandings instead of trying to help them do the best they can to ensure that the potential of their children, becomes something actual - for the betterment of the child, and of society as a whole.

So, the next time you hear someone speak of pushy parents, remember my words and explain to them that, without intrinsic motivation, a child could never achieve anything worthwhile at all. So, if the child has achieved something, it is because it is in them to do so. It wasn't put there, from without.

(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 myth of the brand name school.

In Singapore, there is the widely held belief that a big name school confers a successful life on its graduates. However, is this true?



If we were to do an experiment, we would select a group of people for whom all differences are controlled except for the one of school choice and then see what happens to the outcome of their lives. Fortunately, for my argument, this experiment has already been done. It is called a family I have heard about.



Now, this family is a model Singaporean family, in certain ways. There are several siblings in the family - the exact number wasn't revealed to me in the telling, but from the way the family was spoken of, the number cannot be any less than three and seemed to be more. All the siblings, but one, went to "big name schools". One of them, however - the black sheep of the family, if you will - didn't thrive in primary school and ended up in ITE (or "tech school"). Now, international readers should understand that ITE provides a practically oriented technical education and is, in Singaporean terms, conventionally thought suitable for those of lesser ability. It is not held in high respect in Singapore and seems, to an outsider, at least, to be looked down upon, by many (who have a University background, usually).



The siblings of this ITE trained young man, all went on to University, all "succeeded" in their educations, in the conventionally expected sense. However, many years later, something very, very strange has happened. One person in the family has truly succeeded in real life - all the others have failed.



Yes. That is right - the ITE trained sibling has become a great success and all his University educated siblings are leading mediocre careers of no distinction. The ITE trained sibling earns far more than his brothers - and, in fact, not infrequently, they approach him for money. How he deals with that, I don't know. Yet, it seems to me that there is something very informative about this family tale. It says to me that it is not the school you go to, nor the education you receive that truly determines your success in life - it is who you are, as a person.



The ITE trained sibling had the right set of attitudes, spirit and other qualities of mind, to prove himself of great value in the workplace. His employers found him very capable and so promoted him rapidly. Indeed, without revealing too much about him, he was made the YOUNGEST manager in his field, at a large company, that they have ever appointed. Yet, he only had a secondary education and never secured a degree. His degree holding brothers did not have the right attitudes, spirit and qualities, were not held in high esteem by their employers and have not done well in their careers - despite holding degrees from "big name schools".



This example upends the whole means by which Singaporeans like to measure their fellow citizens: by their education. It is not the education that counts - it is who you are, as this family have learnt. Here, the one with ostensibly the poorest education, is leading the most successful life. What does that say about the Singaporean obsession with education? Is it misplaced? Have they overlooked more important characteristics that determine whether or not someone will succeed?



It would be easy, on paper, to underestimate the ITE trained sibling. It would be easy to dismiss him as "not having a degree" - but there is an employer in Singapore, who is very glad to have given this particular person a chance to show what they can do. Many employers would not have done that. Yet, this ITE trained sibling is not only the star of his family, but is a star of his company...all because someone looked beyond what he had to offer on paper, and saw what he had to offer in person.



I cannot help but feel that Singapore, in general, would be better off, if employers were all as his is: if they took the time to see each individual as they are, rather than just examined whether they came from a "big name school". Perhaps, then, they would make better hiring decisions. You see sometimes it is not the name of the school that is big - it is the nature of the person themselves. I, personally, would much rather hire a big person, than a big school.

(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.)

Talent will out

There is a saying in Britain: "Talent will out". This means that those who are talented will eventually succeed - but is this true? One doesn't have to be very observant, in life, to come across many people who are evidently talented, but not very successful. Clearly, all is not as it seems.

My contention, supported by a lifetime of experience and observation, is that talent, in itself, is not enough to guarantee success in any field. There are simply too many other factors at work, as well. Often, it is not the most talented person who succeeds - but the best connected. This is an example of the "who you know, not what you know" phenomenon.

Acting is a case in point. What is the background of the actors who "make it" in public life? Well, very often, in fact, too, too often, they come from families who are already connected to showbusiness. This explains something I was often confronted with, when I was an actor: the best actors did not necessarily get the jobs - and the ones who did get the jobs, weren't always that good as actors. They had something else going for them: they knew the people involved in the projects. This happened a lot.

I met many good actors in those days. I met many actors who seemed to have much more talent than their famous colleagues - and yet, they were relatively unknown. They had talent but they didn't have the opportunities provided by good connections in the business - and so, ultimately, they failed to succeed.

I use acting as an example, but this phenomenon will apply, in varying degrees, to almost all areas of life: knowing the right people really helps - in fact a lot more than actually being the right person (in the sense of having the talent).

Let us just check out the backgrounds of a couple of famous actors as examples. Ewan MacGregor - of Star Wars fame. Now, those who know him well, won't be surprised, but others, who don't, might be surprised to learn that he had a relative in the original Star Wars film. No doubt that connection helped put him in touch with George Lucas, at the right time. Furthermore he is related by blood or the marriage of his relatives, to three established figures in British showbusiness: Denis Lawson, Shelia Gish (very respected) and Lou Gish. With such a base of connections to start out with in the showbusiness world, it would have been a lot easier for the young Ewan MacGregor to establish himself than his unconnected contemporary competitors.

Another example is Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. He started out his career as one of the most connected individuals you could imagine. Both of his parents work, in some way or other, in showbusiness. His mother is actually a casting director. That is the person whose job it is to select people for roles on behalf of production companies: they are the people who cast actors. Clearly, she would know, personally, many key players in the business, many people able to give her son a job. The same could be said for his father. He is a literary agent - which is more relevant that it seems. A literary agent is connected to the film and tv worlds through the sale of books to them. So, his father, too, would have good showbusiness connections. It is impossible to run Daniel Radcliffe's life again, without his parents connections, but undoubtedly he would have had a hard time of it - and may, in fact, never have succeeded at all, without them. That is what I would expect, anyway, from what I have seen in other talented but unconnected individuals.

There are many talented people in this world who never really get the chance to shine. I met many on my way in England. None of them made it. Yet, many of them "had it" - in the sense of talent. It is a pity really. I have often thought how much better films and theatre would be if the person who was cast was actually the best person for the role - rather than just the best connected person (as it usually is). I rather feel that the quality of that particular art would be so much higher if it were so.

No doubt this observation applies to many other areas of life, too. Everything would be so much better if it was genuinely the best, most suited person doing it. Indeed, it would be good, indeed, if the saying: "Talent will out", was true - but it isn't.

(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, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)