5 ms·

Isn't this all pop science bestsellers? Freakonomics etc.? I mean it's not for everyone, but if (big if) it's reasonably accurate what is the harm?

• nordsieck 8y ago
  > Isn't this all pop science bestsellers? ... if (big if) it's reasonably accurate what is the harm? IMO, a bag of truth and lies is more dangerous than anything else: there's enough truth that the lies sound more plausible making it pretty difficult to separate them. It's much better to just steer clear of unethical authors.
• jacobolus 8y ago
  Freakonomics is a triumph of marketing and speculation over expertise. Its point was never to be “accurate”, but to be controversial, to which end it focused on ambitious “counter-intuitive” claims in far flung fields (in which the authors had no deep knowledge or experience), backed with sloppy data and analysis. Most of its claims have aged rather poorly as more grounded and meticulous scholars examined them. On the flip side it got a lot of high school students interested in studying economics and statistics once they got to college.
• ekianjo 8y ago
  The reasonably accurate is highly dubious. I have read several of Gladwell's books and as pointed out by the notes here, there is a lot of shortcuts taken and blatant contradictions if you avoid getting lost in the nicely written narrative.