Arfa Karim Randhawa, child prodigy, dies.

Arfa Karim Randhawa, a Pakistani child prodigy known for being the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, has died aged just 16 years old. Without warning, on the 22^nd December, she suffered a severe epileptic fit and fell into a coma. On December 29^th, her doctors said there was no possibility of survival. They proved right. She died yesterday, despite showing seeming signs of improvement in the previous days.

Remarkably, perhaps, prayers were said for her by the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and a number of other government officials commented on her demise, including the Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani. Her passing has occasioned a degree of national grieving, with public figures, such as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief, Altaf Hussain saying that Pakistan had lost a “precious talent”.

Arfa Karim Randhawa’s passing, before she could fulfil the life of promise that seems to have been hers, by birthright, is a harsh reminder of how fragile we all are and how suddenly life can come to an end, when we least expect it. Yet, there is also something of note about Arfa Karim’s passing: that anyone noticed or cared. I am sure that other 16 year olds in Pakistan were busy dying on Saturday, too...no doubt many did so – but the world simply neither cared nor noticed. It is Arfa Karim’s prodigiousness, her early show of talent, that brought her to the attention of Pakistan and the wider world. This explains an observation many have made: that child prodigies seem to die younger than other categories of exemplary people. I have often seen searches for this, arriving on my blog. Well, it is time, perhaps, to explain this seeming phenomenon. It is not what it appears. I don’t believe that child prodigies are fated to die young. It is just that when they do die young, people notice. I am sure that they die young no more frequently than any other type of person dies young. Being prodigious does not portend a short life. It portends the possibility of an unusually productive life, if the prodigy is given the right opportunities. Early death is not part of the seemingly Faustian pact. Arfa Karim Randhawa has died very young. We notice her death, because of her early achievement in computing. Had she lived an ordinary life, with ordinary achievements, no-one, but her family and friends, would have noticed her death. We would not then say that, “Non-prodigious children die young”. In just the same way, we cannot say: “Prodigious children die young”. They don’t. It is just that because of their early fame, they are noticed in a way that other early deaths are not. Of all categories of achievers, child prodigies come to notice earliest. Thus, the early deaths among them are noticed, which drags the average age of death down, for child prodigies. In other categories of achiever, early deaths mean they are not noticed or counted in for consideration: they are invisible, so they don’t bring the mean age at death, down.

Thus, although Arfa Karim Randhawa’s passing is very sad for those who knew her and, it seems, even for Pakistan, itself, it should not be seen as evidence that child prodigies die young. I am certain that they are, in truth, no more likely to die young, than is anyone else.

My condolences to Arfa Karim Randhawa’s family and friends. May she rest in peace.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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H1N1 flu and personal hygiene, in Singapore.

H1N1 is busily making its way through the ranks of Singaporeans. Presently there are a couple of hundred confirmed cases (and no doubt quite a few unknown ones, too) and it is spreading throughout the community. The danger is, of course, that it could become very widespread. This would lead to many deaths, if so, because of its 0.37% death rate (according to the death rates observed in America, which should be typical of a person in a developed nation receiving maximal treatment).

Now, Singapore is an overcrowded little island. Everyone knows this. Moreover it is clear that this presents difficulties in creating "social distance" to reduce the spread of the virus. People live and work close together. They jostle each other on the streets and on public transport. Life, here, is a bit of a squeeze. Reducing large gatherings, such as school assemblies is one way, however, of reducing the spread of infection. H1N1 need not become nigh universal in the population...but I worry that it could.

There is another cause for worry, however, apart from the relative lack of "social distance". This is personal hygiene. In my decade or so in Singapore, I have noted that many people here have yet to discover the use of the taps and soap, in public bathrooms. Too many men walk out of the toilet, without washing their hands (whether they had been using the urinals, or the cubicles). When I first noted this, many years ago, it gave me a little shudder of revulsion, at their filthy habits. Now, however, I am quite used to it and had come to see it as the local way of ensuring that the population doesn't rise too quickly (lots of extra infective deaths!)

With the advent of H1N1, this tendency of local men not to wash their hands after using the toilet is very worrisome indeed. The reason is clear: for even if there was nothing transmitted to their hands, in the toilet, that might prove dangerous or unpleasant, the washing of hands, upon visiting the toilet, cuts down the daily accumulation of pathogens, on the hands. Quite simply, regular washing of the hands, reduces pathogens on the hands and reduces the transmission of ALL infections, not just H1N1. Washing hands upon using the toilet is a basic public health measure, therefore. However, it is something foreign to many local men, who seem to think that having odoriferous hands is trendy.

So, please, wash your hands, after using the bathroom - and encourage all you know to do so, too. It could mean the difference between H1N1 being relatively rare, and becoming truly universal, in Singapore.

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

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