I despise arguments of this nature. You hear them all the time. "Gladwell isn't a scientist and doesn't claim to be. Glen Beck isn't a politician and doesn't cl

I despise arguments of this nature. You hear them all the time. "Gladwell isn't a scientist and doesn't claim to be. Glen Beck isn't a politician and doesn't claim to be, he's an entertainer." It's bullshit. The unstated claim is the basis of their success. Gladwell might not claim to be a scientist, but his success exists entirely because average readers can't tell the difference. Gladwell uses "science" and "journalism" wherever it suits him and ignores them where it doesn't. He gets lots of professors and data and high quality sources to back up his points, even if the overwhelming majority of them point to the contrary. He tells "stories" that anyone with even a modicum of integrity would discover to be somewhere between tenuous at best and false at worst as if they're scientifically proven facts. It's not ok to use science selectively. If you want to tell a story, tell a story. If you want to make a point and back it up with in-depth data and expert commentary, do that then. Either is acceptable. But don't masquerade "stories" as pseudo-science and journalism. It's misleading, and disingenuous. He does write well, but what he writes is nothing more than dangerously convincing pseudo-science.