What you see is what you get.

A couple of months ago, Tiarnan, four, collared his mum, Syahidah with a thought.

"Sometimes," he began, ruminatively, "you cannot tell the good or the bad...but you can DEFINITELY see the ugly."

When I heard this, I thought it eminently wise, for one so small. He had come to observe that moral quality, was not immediately visible, or was, perhaps, at times, ambiguous but that beauty, or its absence was immediately evident.

It is interesting, for me, that he thinks on these matters. He is weighing what is good and what is evil - and how to determine these. He has realized that it is not always easy to say, without further information, whether something or someone is good or evil. He has also come to understand the immediacy of visual beauty and its opposite.

I do not know whether matters of good and evil; beauty and ugliness, are the common thought of four year olds, everywhere...I suspect not. However, it is revealing to me, that they are the material of Tiarnan's thoughts. He is, though he knows it not, having philosophical thoughts. He is thinking about moral values and aesthetics - and, indeed, many other philosophical concerns. His thoughts are concerned with the human sphere and the human experience and what he understands of them. It is not so important what, exactly, he thinks of these matters, but the very fact that he IS thinking of these matters. It says something deep about the nature of his nascent personality and mind, that he should dwell on such matters over other things. I am led to see a certain commonality between Tiarnan and my younger self. For, you see, I have written a book that considers many similar matters, though it is yet unpublished. I find it telling, therefore, that little Tiarnan, who knows nothing of my work, my writings or my deeper thoughts on life (for I have yet to discuss them with him, of course), should, of his own accord, give thought to allied matters.

We are each unique, yet we each share dispositions with our forebears. So it is with my children: though they are unique and unlike any others, in some ways, they are also akin to ourselves, sharing elements, themes, inclinations and instinctive outlooks, with either myself or my wife. It is reassuring to see those dispositions and ways of thought emerging, unprompted, from their growing minds. It informs me that, one day, there will be in this world, three young men who understand their parents better than any others in all the world. They will understand us, because, in some ways, they will be us, be echoes of ourselves, reverberating into a future we may never know, for, of course, our time is likely to be less than theirs. When we are gone, they will remain and, in some way, parts of our human tale, will go on, told by other tongues, and other minds, but informed, nevertheless by some of the very same substance, that made us, what we are and, one day, were.

Carry on thinking Tiarnan...for as your world view forms, I will be here, to understand it - and you.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

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

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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

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

Singapore's scientific racism.

There are many ways to be racist. Singapore likes to explore such possibilities, unconsciously, in the choices it makes and in the projects it deems worthy of pursuing. It is clear, though, that Singaporeans are unaware of the racism that they are steeped in, so deeply are they so steeped.

A recent example of Singapore's racism is a project to map the genome of the Han or Southern Chinese. This was backed by the Genome Institute of Singapore, the GIS. Apparently, they saw fit to draw on the genomes of 8,200 Han Chinese people from all over Singapore and China.

Please mull over the implications of such a project, in "multicultural", "multiracial", "integrated" and "harmonious" Singapore. A Singaporean state-funded institution, the Genome Institute of Singapore, sees fit to pour money into a project aimed at uncovering the secrets of the Han Chinese genome to ultimately help this racial grouping with various genetically linked diseases. I wonder if one of those "diseases" could be racism itself? You see, this project has rather overlooked the Malay and Indian populations in Singapore - not forgetting the Eurasians, Caucasians, and "others". What about these races? Don't they have diseases to worry about too? Oops, I forgot: in Singapore only the Han Chinese really matter. They are, after all almost 80% of the population. They do, after all, own almost everything. They have, after all, allotted almost all the best jobs to themselves. So, it should be no surprise that government money should be devoted to uncovering the secrets of their genome, so that they might be rescued from such earth shattering, mindbogglingly important conditions as "lactose intolerance" (Yes, the researchers actually used that example to justify the enterprise). Other susceptibilities apparently include diabetes and nasopharyngeal cancer. (No investigation, however, is being done into the causes of relative poverty among Singapore's minorities...is that genetic...or perhaps social?)

Worryingly, Associate Professor Liu Jianjun, who headed up this rather odious project, went to the trouble to point out that the results could be used to determine a person's racial origin. He was quoted as saying: "We can determine whether an anonymous Singaporean is a Chinese, his ancestral origin, and sometimes, which dialect group of the Han Chinese he belongs to." Now, excuse me for asking - but why is it so important to know that? Why would so much money be wasted, (sorry "invested") just to be able to prove that someone is, or is not, an authentic "Han Chinese". This smacks of Hitler's Aryan race dogma - and his obsession with "pure" Aryans. The abhorrent stench of a profound, unconscious racism rises from every base pair of the enterprise.

I am struck by the sharp contrast between Singapore's understanding of the possibilities of modern genetics, and the West's understanding. In the West, they had something called the Human Genome Project, to determine the genetic map of a HUMAN. In Singapore, they don't care about humans, at all...they just care about Han Chinese. Thus, Singapore has reinvented the project as the Han Chinese Genome Project - because, after all, no-one else matters, do they?

Now, if Singapore was really, really interested in Singaporeans, the project would have comprised not 8,200 Han Chinese, but perhaps 2,733 Han Chinese, 2,733 Malays, and 2,733 Indians. Then one would have had results of benefit to almost all Singaporeans. However, Singapore has never been about Singaporeans...it has only ever been about the Han Chinese. Were this not so, I would not have had to write this post, because the Han Chinese Genome Project (or whatever they have actually called it) would have been, instead, the Singaporean Genome Project. I could understand a project that focussed on all racial groupings in Singapore - but not one that focussed exclusively on the dominant race. That is a very sharp insult to all members of the minority races in Singapore. It says, most clearly, that "your diseases are not important to us".

Singapore has certain merits. However, fairness between the races is not one of its more evident ones. There are an infinity of examples of instances in which unfairness towards one race or another, can be found. However, what is most interesting, is that that unfairness is never towards the Han Chinese. This study of the Han Chinese is unfair to every member of every minor race in Singapore. It shows, more clearly than anything else the state could have done, that the minor races are, quite literally, of minor concern to the dominant race - and rulers of Singapore.

It is interesting the way science becomes perverted by the local racial-political agenda. When handling human genetics, the West focusses its attention on the nature of the Human and the species as a whole. In Singapore's hands, however, genetics become a tool to further an unconscious - or perhaps even conscious - racist agenda. Just imagine if the tools of genetic mapping had been available to Hitler and ask yourself what would Hitler have done? He would, rather disturbingly, have used them in the same way that Singapore is doing: he would have used it, first, to prove that the Aryans were a separate race and how to identify them. He then would have taken the next step of mapping Jews, so that he could identify - and eliminate them.

Singapore has taken the analogous first step. It has developed the capability of identifying "true" Han Chinese. The next step would be to be able to identify "true" examples of Singapore's minorities and so classify them as "non-Chinese". At this point, I shall halt my train of thought and writing, for I don't know what Singapore would do with such information, were it readily available. A clue lies, perhaps, in the immigration policies of the country: the vast majority of newcomers are PRCs/Han Chinese. This seems to show that a nation consisting entirely of Han Chinese would be seen as desirable. Perhaps gene mapping tools might one day be used to further that end and ensure the great, grand Singaporean future of a monoracial, Han Chinese, island and effective southern most offshoot of the Great Motherland - or is that Fatherland?

(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.)

The science fiction, fantasy fan.

Tiarnan, two, is already showing certain traits that I possessed as a child. The mystery of it is where it all comes from - because I am not really showing these traits as an adult, so he has no real model to draw them from.

Yesterday, Tiarnan, was invited to choose videos at the video store. He was very sure of his selections: he chose 10,000 B.C, The Road to Terabithia and Eragon. Now, as anyone should note, these are all science fiction/science fantasy titles. He ignored all other genres in the store - except he also wanted to get out a dinosaur documentary DVD - but he had already seen that so Syahidah, his mother, vetoed it.

I found his selection very interesting since, as a child and teenager, I had been drawn, primarily, to science fiction and science fantasy in my reading and, if I had the chance, film watching. So, Tiarnan, given complete freedom of choice, is replicating my own childhood choices. I read much science fiction (sci-fi), as a complimentary activity to my interests in science. Thus, my childhood life of the imagination was one that extended my more down to earth interests.

With Tiarnan, it seems he is naturally drawn to that which is more imaginative, more outside the norm of human experience. He is, for instance, a great fan of Ben 10. He has also shown a liking for science, such as is his exposure at this tender age.

To me, this tendency to echo the childhood of the parents is interesting: it seems that basic dispositions of character and interest may also be found in the children. Perhaps much more is inherited than one might suppose.

Tiarnan is a child of great imagination: it has a great effect on him, but I shall post of that another time. It gives me great pleasure to note, though, that his interests are reflecting my own childhood interests. As a father, this means that I can share with him, what once I enjoyed so much, and so come to enjoy it again, in a new way, perhaps a deeper way, as I see him explore territory I so used to explore myself.

Then again, it makes it quite easy for me, as a parent - because I already have such familiarity with his area of interest and so have much to give him, in that regard. This is the kind of luck every parent could do with.

I am looking forward to introducing him to the works of Tolkien, later on - for those were a memorable discovery when I was a kid. No doubt they will be for Tiarnan, too.

I think I have got some videos to watch, now...

(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.)

Lee Kuan Yew on Assortative Mating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.)

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.)

Natural hairstyle and individuality

As regular readers will know, Fintan, four, has curly hair. Yet, we live in Singapore - a "Land of the Straight-Hairs", as I call it. Basically everyone, apart from foreign visitors, has straight, black, flat hair.

A few days ago, Syahidah took Fintan to the Science Centre, in Singapore. This is a kind of interactive Science Museum - though not as extensive as the Science Museum in Kensington, London, that I remember from my childhood, it is still worth a visit, particularly for children.

While wandering around the exhibits, Syahidah noticed two children who looked rather surprising: they both had curly hair.

"Look Fintan!" she pointed them out to him, "They are like you."

He looked and he saw and then he spoke a little disenchantedly, "Yeh, but who is the father?"

His arm picked out a man far away across the room, amidst the bustle of many people coming and going - a curly headed man. How he spotted the man in such a crowded, busy, poorly lit, room is a marvel - but being sharp of eye is typical for Fintan.

There was too much separation between the children and the "father" so Syahidah watched him for a while. Soon enough she saw him close the gap between them and interact with the kids: sure enough, he was the father.

This was one of the only occasions that Fintan has ever seen another curly headed person. Two things are interesting here: first, he was very quick to scan the environment and link the distant curly headed man as father to the nearby curly headed children. But also, it is telling, perhaps in a sad way, the conclusion he drew from this: that those children had reason enough for their curly hair - but he did not. You see neither his mother nor his father have curly hair - but we both have slightly wavy hair. It seems that two genetic doses of "wavy" is enough to make hair curly.

Why do I write this? Well, Fintan feels set apart by his appearance here, in Singapore. No other child of his acquaintance looks remotely like him. He doesn't look Malay (but is half-Malay), he doesn't look Irish (but is half-Irish), he doesn't look Chinese (but speaks it a little), he doesn't look Indian (but occasionally eats their food!). He has no real visual affiliation with any of the basic groupings of Singapore. Being of two different racial lineages, he looks only like his brothers. Allied to this disparity of race, is his hairstyle - abundant, never straight, curls, with plenty of natural body - and this makes him feel marked out from his fellow children. That feeling is unlikely to ever leave him, unless we live somewhere else.

Even Syahidah's attempt to make him feel that there were others, by pointing out the curly-headed children fell flat - because the father's appearance made it clear where their appearance comes from: Fintan has no such understanding of his origin. He cannot say to himself: "My hair looks like Daddy's" or "My hair looks like Mummy's". The fact is, it looks like neither's. Perhaps, then, he feels a little unanchored, a little set adrift. He needs to be moored to the facts of his origin - in a comprehensible visual way - but, owing to his mixed genetic lineage, he cannot really have that. The admixture has obscured his origins - and made something new.

Yet, I am happy for him that he is different. He is different in many ways - and not just hair. He is very much himself and unlike any other. In time, I think he will come to appreciate that and learn to be content with the way things are. It is just that, at four years old, finding common ground with one's fellow youngsters is a big social issue.

I look forward to the day when he is happy to be a stocky, curly headed, half-Irish, half-Malay, handsome man!

(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.)

Genetic determination of all giftedness

Genes are the foundation of all our attributes. This may seem like an obvious statement for many - but for some, it is controversial. This is the core of the nature-nurture debate: are we born or made?

From everything I have read, seen and understood in life, I am firmly on the side of nature. I have seen so many instances of people with abilities and attributes that show familial inheritance, that it could not be otherwise. The gene is all: at least, it is most of the story.

I have posted elsewhere about the remarkably strong relationship between the IQ of the parents and the IQ of the children, once they become adults (a correlation of 0.8). Intelligence is not the only strongly inherited characteristic - our height, our health, our immune systems...everything is there, in the genome. Though many may dislike it, we are very much a product of our genes (though these genes interact with their environment).

I am moved to write about this, today, because of my recent encounter with a supercentenarian. Many react to such a person by asking: "What is their secret?" They believe that there is some environmental quirk which led to such a long life. Well, I have to disappoint you. Teresa Hsu, is presently reputed to be 110 years old. That is interesting and amazing in itself - but what do you think about its cause when I tell you that her mother lived to 104? It begins to look rather like another case of genetic inheritance, doesn't it? Well, how about this: her mother's grandmother lived to 103. Thus Teresa Hsu, far from being possessed of some behavioural secret, is the product of a long-line of female centenarians, in her family. It is an attribute of her family, as much as blue eyes are the attribute of other families. It is a genetic inheritance.

All human giftedness, in my opinion, backed by both observation, and reading of much scientific literature, is founded in the genome. This applies to all ways in which one person may be special compared to another. If you look at them closely enough, you will almost always be able to pinpoint a familial cause: they are the product of their inherited genes.

We should not be concerned that so much of what we are is genetically based. That actually is a cause for celebration - for everyone of us is unique (barring twins etc) - and possess a set of attributes and dispositions, given to us by our genes, that no other person in history has ever possessed or will ever possess. We are all, by genetic definition, completely unique. I find that refreshing.

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

Nobel Prizewinners and genetic giftedness

The Nobel Prize is, probably, the most prestigious of all awards. Each year, it is awarded in six categories: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Peace, Literature and Economics. Yet, I have noted something startling in the prize awards: sometimes it seems to be inherited.

Now, what do I mean by this? Well, quite literally, there are winners whose children also won. This, in itself, provides a very strong argument for the genetic inheritance of genius. Out of the 787 Nobel Prize Winners there have ever been, I count 18 who were genetically related - sixteen of them by a parent child relationship, two of them as brothers.

The father-son pairings are William Bragg and Lawrence Bragg; Niels Bohr and Aage N. Bohr; Hans von Euler-Chelpin and Ulf von Euler; Arthur Kornberg and Roger D. Kornberg; Manne Siegbahn and Kai M. Siegbahn; J.J Thomson and George Paget Thomson.

The father-daughter pairing is: Pierre Curie and Irene-Juliot Curie.

The mother-daughter pairing is: Marie Curie and Irene-Juliot Curie.

The brothers were: Jan Tinbergen and Nikolaas Tinbergen.

There are married couples, too, who have won: four pairings - but I don't mention them - except for the implicit one above, because they are not blood-related (one would think, anyway!).

These instances are powerful evidence of the strong connection between genetic gift and the heights of human achievement - for their Nobel prizewinning achievements, across generations, signal something more important than the prize itself: the passing on of great gift between those generations, to bear fruit, once more.

I have a liking for continuity - and the thought that gifts are transmissible in this way is a nourishing one. It is not just great gifts that are transmissible, of course - but any gift, of any dimension.

On the genetic inheritance of gift

My father was an enormously strong man, in his youth. His strength would have been legendary, had he lived in earlier days, that lauded such things. As it was, however, he found daily uses for his strength, in the way he went about tasks. He was a man who could lift furniture upstairs, on his own. He had no need of the help of another. He could move objects that would be unmovable, at all, to a typical man, with casual ease. Many a time, as a child, I would wonder at the strength he applied to his daily tasks, in the garden or about the house. Unseen by me, he would apply his strength too, in his business – but for privacy’s sake, I am not going to say what that business was. That his strength was an asset to him, even in modern life, is clear, and in some ways, had he not been strong, he would not have been the success he became (for reasons I will leave undescribed, for they would tell too much about his life – and that wouldn’t be fair).

Now he was an enormously strong man – and I inherited some of that from him, for I have always been a strong man – stronger than most men – yet, not as strong as him, I think. The strength has been handed down to me, somewhat diluted.

I look at my sons, now, in particular, Ainan, and no longer see the strength there, at all. You would never guess, looking at Ainan, that his grandfather was of great physical strength. Ainan does not possess the build that promises a large musculature to come: his is the slightness of the eternal academic, not the strength of a fearsome warrior of old, as, no doubt, our forebears in the old celtic world, were.

So, why do I discuss this? Well, looking at Ainan today, in relation to me, I felt our disparity in strength, and remembered my father’s greater strength before me. Is this, then, the destiny of all genetic gift? Is it to be lost little by little, generation by generation, until all is diluted to nothing? Looking at the decline in strength from grandfather, to father, to son, it might seem so, but all, as usual, is not what it seems.

If we look wider than a single line, we see a different story. I have three brothers, two of whom are stronger than me. I am the shortest male in my family, (though six foot tall) but not the lightest, though the two I estimate to be stronger than me, are both heavier and taller than I am.

My father’s genes have spread wide and each of his children carry half of them. He bore gifts of the mind and gifts of the body – for his mind is good, very good – and his body, in terms of strength, in particular, was most well equipped.

Looking at my brothers, I can see that my father’s qualities of mind appear in them in various admixtures – and so too his strength, in various proportions. I don’t know how many genes are involved in the gifts of the mind and the body – but we each have half of them. It seems, from observation, that there must, for strength, be more than one gene involved – for one can see a gradation across the sons: from quite strong, to strong to very strong to ferociously strong.

My father’s gift of strength lives on – and it is possible that one of his sons is stronger than him, in one way – for one son is six inches taller than his father, allowing him an advantage of scale, even if, for his size, he is weaker.

So, too, is it with my children. Ainan missed out on the gift of strength, it seems – but his brother Fintan did not. Fintan is thickset, well-muscled and, like all Cawleys, stronger than you would estimate. So my own gift of strength has not been lost – it is just not evenly distributed amongst my sons.

I do not know whether Fintan will be as strong as me, or whether, like one of my father’s sons, stronger than his father – but that he has inherited greater than common strength is clear. So, the gift goes on.

I would think it is like this with all genetic gifts. Looking both wide and deep, one will see that the gifts pass into one branch of the family, but miss others – and then further branch again, passing into some lines and not others and so on, forever. Nothing will be truly lost as long as one rule is adhered to: have several children – so that each may bear half the genes and so at least half of each gift, onwards.

I ponder this question because Ainan has certain mental gifts which were evident in my childhood and, no doubt, were anyone around to watch, in my father’s before him: how many more generations can this continue?

The answer is, I think, forever – as long as each generation has enough children so that some – well, at least one, - expresses the gift in question and may pass it on.

As it is in our family, so it is in yours. Whatever gifts you have in you, may be passed down – you just need to have a kid or three. Don’t worry that some have it and some don’t – (or some have more and others have less) because all bear some of it, onwards.

Now all I have to hope for is that I become a grandfather, one day – and watch the story begin to unfold again. There would be satisfaction in seeing that genetic continuity at work. I only hope my children want to have children when they grow up. We will see.

(I should add that even my father is not the strongest man in family legend – there were much larger and stronger men, still, in our background. Looked at physically, therefore, there is evidence of decline in strength over many generations, I would say. (In the direct line, there is decline…but the genes spread wide and are around somewhere). Once, it seems, my forebears had a use for such strength – otherwise they would not have evolved to be so strong, I would think. Looking at the history of the area and of the family, I would say a lot of that would have something to do with the war-torn history of the Land of Ireland, in times, before the gun, when strength was a man’s greatest defence – and offence, too, I might add.)

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

Is a big family bad for IQ?

A century of studies on family size and IQ have consistently come up with an unnerving conclusion: on average, across populations, (rather than individual families, who may be exceptional), a big family, means a lower average IQ of each family member. This is not one, isolated study showing this: there are innumerable studies over a century.

Now, what is the reason for this correlation? There are two obvious possibilities. One is that as the family size increases, the parents have less time to give attention to individual children, less money to pay for education and, therefore, the greater the number of children, the less stimulation each child receives. The other possibility is that large families are the product of low IQ parents, of lower social economic class - and indicate differential inheritance, rather than a difference caused by family size, per se.

Traditionally, larger families HAVE been the product of lower socioeconomic classes - and so these studies may be reflecting differences of income and educational opportunity rather than an effect of family size.

On the other hand, as I pointed out in my earlier post, "On being a father of three", http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2007/01/on-being-father-of-three.html, having a larger family does mean less time to apportion to each child, with probable consequences for their intellectual growth.

So, given this, what is one to do with regards to family size? I have three children and would like more - so in this I have joined the 28 per cent of American parents with three or more children. A recent report stated that the nature of these parents is changing: many more of them are from wealthier, better educated families than before. This could be the beginning of a good trend, therefore - of brighter parents, having more children. Are these families condemning their children to dullness? I don't think so. I think the genetic effects are stronger than the environmental and will still allow their children to be bright. Why do I think this? Well as I pointed out in an earlier post on Genius IQ and Genetic Inheritance, http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/genius-iq-and-genetic-inheritance.html, the IQ of parents correlates 0.8 with the adult IQ of their children. That argues a strong role for their genes, and a much smaller role for the environment provided.

If you have a gifted child, it is likely that you could have another if you chose. That your family is getting bigger and your attention would be diluted among more children is probably a smaller factor than the fact that you already have what it takes to make a gifted child, genetically.

Then there is the matter of chance. Which genes a child inherits is random: they will get a selection of half the genes of each parent. Anything can happen in that process - giving a spectrum of results. Yet, if you have more children, you also have more of a chance that one of them will get the right mix of genes and turn out to be gifted - if that is what you want in your child.

It is a difficult matter, family size, for there is no denying that, as the family gets bigger that there is a greater division of attention, time and money. It is, I feel, up to each individual to judge the weight of each of the issues and decide the question: just how big do you want your family to be?

I know the answer for me: at least one more: after three boys, it would be nice to have a girl, too!

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

The mathematical savant who isn't a savant

I believe from the evidence of my life, and from the evidence of science, that great gift is a gift of the genes. It flows through families by inheritance: it is not something made, laboriously in a life, toiling day by day. It is there, or it isn't. It shines or it doesn't.

I have posted before about the inheritance of IQ, in Genius IQ and Genetic Inheritance at:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/genius-iq-and-genetic-inheritance.html

However, it is not just IQ that is inherited - all our mental gifts are - especially the unique gifts that show themselves to a wondering world every now and again, in people we know as geniuses or prodigies. This blog is about my children and their gifts - but occasionally I will also post about their relatives to show what is very clear to me: a pattern of genetic inheritance of gift flowing through my family. You may very well see the same pattern in your own family - and if so, please comment about it, to expand our understanding of this issue.

I have many relatives, but I shall focus on one, who shall not be named. He doesn't know I am writing of him, so I will not reveal any details of his life, except the one that pertains to this post. He has shown a very special gift, that he has never thought much of, since he was a child. You see he is a "lightning calculator". He has a savant-like gift for number. He is a very intelligent man. When tested by his employer on an adult IQ test, he maxed the test. So he is not a savant for only one reason: savants usually display some form of mild retardation. He is not retarded. He is profoundly gifted. However, he shows the gift of a mathematical savant, too. I find this interesting, for it shows that savant type gifts can exist in people of normal or even extraordinary intelligence.

Ever since he was a young boy he could do something very strange with numbers. If you asked him a calculation, using the normal mathematical functions, he would be able to give you the answer straight away, without hesitation and without error. What was strange about this was that he could do so quicker than you could type the question into a calculator. He could do it for large numbers - and he was always right. In earlier days, this gift of his would have been much prized, but in the age of computers, it is something that is not valued, despite the fact that he could beat you on your calculator to the answer. Whether or not our society values this gift, it indicates a special quality of the mind, that is very rare.

When he was training in London for a financial institution, the lecturer noticed his gift for numbers and gave him a very long, multifunctional calculation to do, which he wrote on the board. As he finished writing it, he gave the answer. The lecturer then asked if anyone in the audience had a calculator and got them to check the answer. He was right. The lecturer observed that in the twenty years he had been training the entrants to this financial institution, most of them with strong mathematical backgrounds, he had never encountered anyone so fast with numbers as him.

When he was at school, there was a child mathematical prodigy there, whom the press had hailed as "the brightest boy since the middle ages". This boy challenged my relative to an arithmetical duel. He duly accepted. A third boy chose two very large numbers for multiplication and called them out. It was not long before the prodigy shouted out an answer. My relative said, at once: "You are wrong!", then a moment later gave his own answer. The calculator was duly set to work. My relative was right. Upon being pronounced the winner, he then turned to the prodigy and told him exactly which step the other had made a mistake in, what the mistake was, and how the miscalculation had come about. While working out the calculation for himself, he had followed the other's miscalculation and worked out the solution of which step, out of all possible steps, and which error, out of all possible errors, would have resulted in the answer the other had given.

There was an embarrassed silence. My kin had won.

(If you would like to learn more of the Cawley family, in particular, my son Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged six, and his gifted brothers go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html )

Genius IQ and Genetic Inheritance

If you have a genius child, where does that genius come from? The short answer is you...

There has been a century long nature-nurture debate regarding human intelligence: are we born great or are we made great? Does brilliance shine forth from the womb...or is it something grown laboriously later? Is genius a genetic gift, or the product of good education and parenting?

Uncomfortable though it may be for some, there is a strong answer to this question that has long been known. The evidence comes in the heritability of IQ. You see, if you have a gifted child, whether moderately gifted, highly gifted, exceptionally gifted, or profoundly gifted, there will be a strong correlation between the IQ of the parents and that of the child: gifted child implies gifted parents.

This correlation is not so clear in childhood, but strengthens as the child grows older, such that by the time the child is an adult, the correlation between the IQ of the parents, and the IQ of the child, as an adult, is 0.8. That is a very high correlation, considering that a correlation of 1.0 would indicate identity of IQ, and perfect correlation. There is, therefore, relatively little room for the influence of the environment on the IQ of the resulting adult: all that fuss about education and worries over parenting style, make relatively little difference to adult smartness.

In brief, if you have inherited smart genes, you are overwhelmingly likely to be a smart adult. If you have profoundly gifted parents, you too are likely to be profoundly gifted - or perhaps exceptionally gifted. The same story applies to your children: a genius IQ is an inherited gift, like so many other human atttributes.

As I have noted before, there are many other attributes to true genius, than just IQ test results - but it is one factor, and an important one, that has been proven to have a very high genetic heritability.

This post is, in a way, an extension of my comment in the previous post on Prodigy and Pushy Parents - myth or truth? You see those who bluntly accuse the parents of gifted children of pushy parenting should realize something: the true gift is in the genes - if it is there, it is there because of inheritance, not tutors and extra classes, and demanding the best from one's child. To blame another for their genes, is the height of foolishness - yet that is what, in effect, many other parents do, when confronted with the gifted child and their gifted parents.

Genius is a gift, so too is extreme intelligence, or intelligence of any degree. Cherish that inheritance, but realize that that is what it is: an inheritance - and thank your parents for it - as I do mine, here.

(For posts on Ainan Celeste Cawley, six, a scientific child prodigy, and his gifted brothers, go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html )