{"id":2835,"date":"2015-09-22T18:01:08","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T00:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2835"},"modified":"2015-09-22T18:01:08","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T00:01:08","slug":"clock-boys-story-gets-odder-with-more-overreaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/09\/clock-boys-story-gets-odder-with-more-overreaction.html","title":{"rendered":"Clock-boy’s story gets odder – with more overreaction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Update on Ahmed Mohamed:<\/p>\n

The other day I\u00a0discussed reports\u00a0that his \u201cinvention\u201d was just a disassembled and re-assembled 80s digital clock<\/a>. \u00a0Now there\u2019s some \u201cnew news.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article from the National Review<\/a> reports that Mark Cuban, basketball team owner, relayed to Bill Maher <\/a>his experience of talking to the boy on the phone:<\/p>\n

Cuban was impressed with the \u2018science geek\u2019 and \u2018great kid\u2019 in their discussion but noted an awkwardness to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to the kid,\u201d Cuban said. \u201cHe\u2019s from Dallas, and I\u2019ve talked to the people in the school district. The kid is a super smart kid. Science geek. We talked about science, but while I\u2019m talking to him on the phone, as I ask him a question, \u2018Tell me what happened because I\u2019m curious.\u2019 Right? His sister, over his shoulder, you could hear, listening to the question, giving him the answer. So, I don\u2019t know all the details of what happened, but what I do know, when I talked to him about science, when I talked to him about magnets, when I talked to him about creating things, he was very, very engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the panel discussed whether Mohamed\u2019s arrest was related to his skin color or his faith, Cuban argued that many are missing a key point.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll he had to do was engage with the teacher, and he didn\u2019t. That\u2019s the point that was missing,\u201d Cuban said. \u201cIt was wrong that he got arrested, but all that he had to do was talk to the teacher, but he didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why did the boy need his sister to coach him?<\/p>\n

Then the Dallas News provided an update<\/a>: \u00a0the boy and his siblings have withdrawn from the local public schools, and<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t know where Ahmed will go to school next\u2014plenty of schools have offered to take him, and the family is reportedly in talks with MIT.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MIT? \u00a0Available news reports describe an offer to visit and tour the campus, e.g.,<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s any possibility that you can come visit us as MIT, I would love to give you a tour of the center for theoretical physics and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics,\u201d [MIT astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein] said adding that her former advisers at Harvard University were equally keen to show the teen around Cambridge, Massachusetts. \u201cYou are the kind of student that we want at places like MIT and Harvard.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But attend there? \u00a0Skip the rest of high school and show up at MIT in the second semester? \u00a0No. \u00a0Conceivably he could have gotten an offer from a local private high school, though I would be surprised if they have scholarship money to hand out on a whim.<\/p>\n

Oh, and he\u2019s been a \u201cguest of honor\u201d at the Google Science Fair<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 where he\u2019s been hobnobbing with, and being treated as a celebrity, by kids who have actually invented, well, some pretty serious inventions:<\/p>\n

Taking home the $50,000 grand prize was Olivia Hallisey, 16, from Connecticut. Moved by the lives lost in Africa to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, she devised a rapid, portable and inexpensive diagnostic test for the detection of the virus. Hallisey says she was inspired to become a scientist by her late grandfather, a doctor and medical researcher and one day hopes to work for a global health organization such as Doctors Without Borders.<\/p>\n

Also receiving awards were Girish Kumar, 17 of Singapore, who came up with a way to automatically generate review questions for students from online textbooks; Krtin Nithiyanandam, 14 of Surrey, England, who designed a diagnostic tool to detect Alzheimer\u2019s at earlier stages in the disease; Pranav Sivakumar, 15 of Aurora, Illinois who invented an automated method for finding and characterizing gravitationally lensed quasars; Anurudh Ganesan, 15 of Clarksburg, Md., who designed a more reliable way to transport vaccines to remote locations in developing countries; Deepika Kurup, 17 of Nashua, NH, devised a filtration system to remove toxins from drinking water; Lalita Prasida Sripada Srisai, 13 from India, came up with an inexpensive way to clean waste water by flowing it through corn cobs; and Eliott Sarrey,14 from Maron, France, who built a robot that when controlled by a smartphone can tend vegetable gardens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another news site claims<\/a> that he\u2019s being \u201crecruited\u201d by tech companies \u2014 well, maybe if \u201crecruiting\u201d means being invited to visit the campus:<\/p>\n

Writes Mark Zuckerberg to his Facebook wall:<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably seen the story about Ahmed, the 14 year old student in Texas who built a clock and was arrested when he took it to school. Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to people like Ahmed. Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I\u2019d love to meet you. Keep building.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So this is pretty nuts. \u00a0Lots of people going crazily overboard in their hailing this boy as a wunderkind, a genius, when, at best, they have simply no sense of proportion, and cannot distinguish between a reasonable project for a young high schooler and exceptional intelligence, and, at worse, are fawning over him because of the politics.<\/p>\n

And at the same time: \u00a0where\u2019s the family headed now? \u00a0Not to Disneyland, but to Mecca<\/a>:<\/p>\n

So on Wednesday, the entire family plans to fly to New York, where Mohamed said dignitaries with the United Nations want to meet the boy.<\/p>\n

After that, if they can get a visa, [father Mohamed Elhassan]\u00a0<\/span>Mohamed wants to take Ahmed on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He hopes the family can better plan the future from holy ground.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mecca? \u00a0If they can get a visa? \u00a0And then<\/em> pick a school? \u00a0 \u00a0The Hajj started today, and runs for five days. \u00a0Does the family expect to somehow fly there immediately and join in the rites halfway through? \u00a0Are they planning on waiting until the crowds have left? \u00a0(Incidental fact: \u00a0it doesn\u2019t \u201ccount\u201d for fulfilling the Islamic religious duty to come to Mecca at just any time of year; it must be for the Hajj.) \u00a0It seems rather improbable that the family can obtain a visa with any degree of speed \u2014 unless a trip was planned all along, in which case they\u2019d have already left to get their on time.<\/p>\n

I said earlier that, if this was a prank or a trap, that still doesn\u2019t justify the authorities having taking the bait. \u00a0But the situation is odder by the minute.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update on Ahmed Mohamed: The other day I\u00a0discussed reports\u00a0that his \u201cinvention\u201d was just a disassembled and re-assembled 80s digital clock. \u00a0Now there\u2019s some \u201cnew news.\u201d This article from the National Review reports that Mark Cuban, basketball team owner, relayed to Bill Maher his experience of talking to the boy on the phone: Cuban was impressed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nClock-boy's story gets odder - with more overreaction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Update on Ahmed Mohamed: The other day I\u00a0discussed reports\u00a0that his "invention" was just a disassembled and re-assembled 80s digital clock. \u00a0Now there's\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/09\/clock-boys-story-gets-odder-with-more-overreaction.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clock-boy's story gets odder - 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