4 ms·

The book review is impressively hypocritical. She ruthlessly disdains Malcolm Gladwell's use of selectively chosen biographical examples and anecdotal evidence,

The book review is impressively hypocritical. She ruthlessly disdains Malcolm Gladwell's use of selectively chosen biographical examples and anecdotal evidence, and then proceeds to selectively cherry-pick examples, to optimally infuriate politically correct sensibilities. She then lampoons him for incompleteness. She mentions only one of the many larger studies that he cites, the Terman study. Was the Terman study wide ranging? Yes. Does it fit Gladwell's hypothesis that the opportunities one is offered matter? Yes. Does she show it to be incorrect? No. Does she attack any part of it? No. Does she mention any of the other studies that Gladwell mentions? That major hockey players are nearly all born in the first three months of the year? Ericsson's studies on expertise? Flynn's analysis on historic chinatowns? No! If I present a theory, and back it up with a bunch of other data points, one should not be able to pick out a single data point, claim that I am basing my loose hypothesis on anecdotal evidence, and say I am irresponsible. This is what is being done.

timr 18y ago
"The book review is impressively hypocritical. She ruthlessly disdains Malcolm Gladwell's use of selectively chosen biographical examples and anecdotal evidence, and then proceeds to selectively cherry-pick examples, to optimally infuriate politically correct sensibilities. She then lampoons him for incompleteness." You've pretty much described 95% of the fun of reading the New York Times' book review. It's a public forum for less-famous writers to snipe at more-famous ones -- it's practically the first blog.
- astrec 18y ago
  Indeed. And Michiko Kakutani happens to be somewhat famous for her negative pieces on famous writers.
antiform 18y ago
I generally agree with what you're saying, and it's amusing how she proceeds to do something that is essentially what she is criticizing Gladwell for doing himself, but I give benefit of the doubt to the critic, because there is a remarkable difference in medium. It's a book review, not a complete refutation. She has about a dozen paragraphs to summarize and critique 300+ pages. Is there enough space to complete address even one of the cases brought up in the book? I think not. I've read the book. It's entertaining, but I don't think it's as well-developed as Blink or The Tipping Point. I think Gladwell is a good writer who serves a previously unfilled role as a popular popularizer of academic work. However, every time I read his work, I wish that experts of the fields he reports on would also write popular expositions that could be consumed by an audience like that of the New Yorker. I know that the evidence backing some of what I was reading was sketchy at best. Asian children score higher on math tests because their ancestors labored in rice fields? Please. It doesn't detract from the entertainment value of the book, but I would think twice before believing what I read in the book was indicative of reality. As for your theory argument, I would have to disagree in many different cases. Suppose that you only chose to include data points that support your argument. Then people have every right to pick an alternate data point, claim that your study is faulty and that you're being irresponsible. This is exactly what many of his detractors are pointing out, and it is a point that is often missed. The primary argument against the book and the Gladwell style of investigation is that he tends not to include or even discuss studies or points or examples that do not support his argument. This is understandable, since he is attempt to speak to a popular audience and does not have the space to discuss every relevant study if he wants to run through all of his cases, but by doing this, he makes many smart people feel like he is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
- DaniFong 18y ago
  "However, every time I read his work, I wish that experts of the fields he reports on would also write popular expositions that could be consumed by an audience like that of the New Yorker." I wish that were true too. I am trying in my own blog to present my work in both a form accessible to the literate public and helpful for researchers (though I have neither published most of my work yet, nor attracted an audience the size of the New Yorker so you will just have to be patient!) Arguably, Flynn did his best with "What is intelligence?" but people probably ran for the hills at the first formula. Such is life. But there are at least a few scientists who write for the public audience, Dawkins, Dyson, Hawking and Pinker perhaps most relevantly today, that do attract a wide readership. I honestly think Gladwell does a better job presenting things straight than Hawking. The rice field argument, while apparently silly, doesn't strike me as particularly wrong. I'm merely unconvinced. Does Gladwell in this book, more than his others, draw theories from selected scattered 'outliers,' more often than reasonable? I do not know how far he goes.
jerf 18y ago
I'm coming around to the point of view that when somebody complains about simplification or incompleteness, that they should simply be ignored. As long as the simplification isn't actively wrong and the incompleteness isn't deceptive by leaving out contrary evidence, one must be aware that all forms of work are limited. Jeff Atwood took a lot of flack in his recent NP post simply because he dared describe the problem in non-mathematical terms. He may also have been wrong, but I am inclined to think his explanation was (correctly) too simplified to really be wrong... but still, right now I'm talking about the people who flamed him for failing to include a complete computer science textbook in his blog post. Yes, I am so sorry that in my blog post ruminating on how unit testing seems to affect my Python coding that I did not include a complete, correct Grand Unified Theory of the universe complete with how to apply it at the macroscopic level and use it to predict who will win the Presidential election in 2016 and create a superhuman-intelligent AI. At some point you to understand that any given work has boundaries. I've become sensitive to this because I actually have fallen for the trap of trying to be too inclusive, and it's worthless. Stop complaining about it. Or, at the very least, when complaining that work X should have included Y, you should say what should have been cut instead and why it would be an actual improvement in the end product, preferably beyond "I would like it better".

timr 18y ago

"The book review is impressively hypocritical. She ruthlessly disdains Malcolm Gladwell's use of selectively chosen biographical examples and anecdotal evidence, and then proceeds to selectively cherry-pick examples, to optimally infuriate politically correct sensibilities. She then lampoons him for incompleteness." You've pretty much described 95% of the fun of reading the New York Times' book review. It's a public forum for less-famous writers to snipe at more-famous ones -- it's practically the first blog.

astrec 18y ago
Indeed. And Michiko Kakutani happens to be somewhat famous for her negative pieces on famous writers.

antiform 18y ago

I generally agree with what you're saying, and it's amusing how she proceeds to do something that is essentially what she is criticizing Gladwell for doing himself, but I give benefit of the doubt to the critic, because there is a remarkable difference in medium. It's a book review, not a complete refutation. She has about a dozen paragraphs to summarize and critique 300+ pages. Is there enough space to complete address even one of the cases brought up in the book? I think not. I've read the book. It's entertaining, but I don't think it's as well-developed as Blink or The Tipping Point. I think Gladwell is a good writer who serves a previously unfilled role as a popular popularizer of academic work. However, every time I read his work, I wish that experts of the fields he reports on would also write popular expositions that could be consumed by an audience like that of the New Yorker. I know that the evidence backing some of what I was reading was sketchy at best. Asian children score higher on math tests because their ancestors labored in rice fields? Please. It doesn't detract from the entertainment value of the book, but I would think twice before believing what I read in the book was indicative of reality. As for your theory argument, I would have to disagree in many different cases. Suppose that you only chose to include data points that support your argument. Then people have every right to pick an alternate data point, claim that your study is faulty and that you're being irresponsible. This is exactly what many of his detractors are pointing out, and it is a point that is often missed. The primary argument against the book and the Gladwell style of investigation is that he tends not to include or even discuss studies or points or examples that do not support his argument. This is understandable, since he is attempt to speak to a popular audience and does not have the space to discuss every relevant study if he wants to run through all of his cases, but by doing this, he makes many smart people feel like he is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

DaniFong 18y ago
"However, every time I read his work, I wish that experts of the fields he reports on would also write popular expositions that could be consumed by an audience like that of the New Yorker." I wish that were true too. I am trying in my own blog to present my work in both a form accessible to the literate public and helpful for researchers (though I have neither published most of my work yet, nor attracted an audience the size of the New Yorker so you will just have to be patient!) Arguably, Flynn did his best with "What is intelligence?" but people probably ran for the hills at the first formula. Such is life. But there are at least a few scientists who write for the public audience, Dawkins, Dyson, Hawking and Pinker perhaps most relevantly today, that do attract a wide readership. I honestly think Gladwell does a better job presenting things straight than Hawking. The rice field argument, while apparently silly, doesn't strike me as particularly wrong. I'm merely unconvinced. Does Gladwell in this book, more than his others, draw theories from selected scattered 'outliers,' more often than reasonable? I do not know how far he goes.

jerf 18y ago

I'm coming around to the point of view that when somebody complains about simplification or incompleteness, that they should simply be ignored. As long as the simplification isn't actively wrong and the incompleteness isn't deceptive by leaving out contrary evidence, one must be aware that all forms of work are limited. Jeff Atwood took a lot of flack in his recent NP post simply because he dared describe the problem in non-mathematical terms. He may also have been wrong, but I am inclined to think his explanation was (correctly) too simplified to really be wrong... but still, right now I'm talking about the people who flamed him for failing to include a complete computer science textbook in his blog post. Yes, I am so sorry that in my blog post ruminating on how unit testing seems to affect my Python coding that I did not include a complete, correct Grand Unified Theory of the universe complete with how to apply it at the macroscopic level and use it to predict who will win the Presidential election in 2016 and create a superhuman-intelligent AI. At some point you to understand that any given work has boundaries. I've become sensitive to this because I actually have fallen for the trap of trying to be too inclusive, and it's worthless. Stop complaining about it. Or, at the very least, when complaining that work X should have included Y, you should say what should have been cut instead and why it would be an actual improvement in the end product, preferably beyond "I would like it better".