Gladwell's writing is very seductive but frequently wrong. I like to think of it as speculative non-fiction. It has the same mind-expanding qualities as good S

Gladwell's writing is very seductive but frequently wrong. I like to think of it as speculative non-fiction. It has the same mind-expanding qualities as good SF, and its connection to reality can be just as tenuous. It is very easy to make up a plausible sounding theory. The harder part is making sure it has no holes in it. The hardest part is proving it. To show how easy the first part is, let me, as a layperson, give an alternative evolutionary explanation for why it makes sense that (some) people can accurately judge others in a short amount of time: Consider an intelligent social species. When two strangers meet, the ability to judge accurately and to be favorably judged, both lead to better fitness. Lets assume there are situations where intelligence is the dominant quality that is being evaluated. Now if you are intelligent, you want to honestly communicate this, so its in your best interest to aid the judgement of the other person. If you are not, then its preferable to be dishonest and lie. Now the interesting part is that the ability to lie effectively is highly correlated with intelligence, since lying takes more cognitive effort than just telling the truth. So if you aren't intelligent, you also can't lie well enough to fool an intelligent judge. And if you are intelligent, you don't need to lie. This evolutionary dynamic can easily lead to a state where intelligent individuals can quickly judge the intelligence of others, because they don't have to worry about other intelligent people fooling them.