3 ms·

What's wild to me is that anyone could read chapter 4 and not look up the original papers in disbelief. Long before the controversy was public I was reading th

What's wild to me is that anyone could read chapter 4 and not look up the original papers in disbelief. Long before the controversy was public I was reading that book and, despite claims that the reader must believe the findings, it sounded like nonsense to me. So I looked up the original paper to see what the experiment set up was, and it was unquestionably a ridiculous conclusion to draw from a deeply flawed experiment. I still never understood how that chapter got through without anyone else having the same reaction I did.

dwighttk 3y ago
In those times, that was exactly the kind of thing that people wanted to believe
foobiekr 3y ago
I had exactly this reaction to Malcolm gladwell. It is completely obvious that gladwell across multiple books has never once read one of his references and consistently misrepresents what they say.
- kbenson 3y ago
  I have a slightly different take on him, which comes to the same ultimate end on how I view his work. As he's shifted from primarily a journalist to primarily a storyteller, he's chosen to sacrifice additional information and accuracy in lieu of telling a consistent and compelling narrative that support what he thinks is the important thing to take away, not necessarily what you would take away were you to review all the same information yourself. Under that understanding, I find him fun to listen to. The things he "reports" on/illuminates are interesting, but at this point I don't assume he's giving them an even handed representation, so his conclusions are not necessarily my own, and at best it's a set of things to look into and research myself if I find my interest piqued after a fun or interesting story is told.
  - daymanstep 3y ago
    But once you fact-check him a few times, then you won't be able to trust that his sources support his points anymore, which then raises the question: Is there ANY evidence that supports what Gladwell is trying to say? If the best evidence that Gladwell could find to support his points, don't support his points, then it really makes me question the utility of trying to find evidence to support Gladwell's points. It may be that, the reason why no subject matter expert makes the points that Gladwell does is because Gladwell's points are either wrong or not even wrong.
    - kbenson 3y ago
      The problem is that Gladwell comes off as trying to be scientific, when really he's just a persuasive storyteller. If you view Gladwell as a purveyor of facts or a science communicator, then he does a horrible job and yes, it's hard to trust whatever he presents because he's at best not very careful about his facts and conclusions. In that case, why would you ever pay attention to him? On the other hand if you see Gladwell for what I think he is, which is an entertaining storyteller using science as a backdrop to present his view of the world, and willing to twist it to suit his view, then he's really no different than many other writers. In that case you can enjoy him or not, at your leisure, just as you would any other editorial or op-ed piece. Entertainment is entertainment, and his content is entertaining even if I don't expect it to be true (to be clear, I'm approaching this as someone that mostly consumes his podcasts, which some chapters of his books have been directly converted to. I wouldn't want to spend the time reading this content that's not true, but I'm happy to listen to it while on a drive). Whether he's causing more harm than good overall to the public is another question, but honestly that's a much bigger discussion with a lot of much bigger problems than him, so I'm not sure it's worth getting worked up over.
      - sooheon 3y ago
        The problem with "take it or leave it, it's just a story" is that stories are not neutral, or cost-free. Memes compete for attention/proliferation/survival, and false-but-appealing memes outcompete true-but-boring memes. It's a mini DDOS attack on our collective bandwidth to be churning out durable falsehoods disguised as scientific insight.
Nurw 3y ago
Haha, yeah, I am reading the book these days, and I clearly remember thinking that those effects seemed really exaggerated.

dwighttk 3y ago

In those times, that was exactly the kind of thing that people wanted to believe

foobiekr 3y ago

I had exactly this reaction to Malcolm gladwell. It is completely obvious that gladwell across multiple books has never once read one of his references and consistently misrepresents what they say.

kbenson 3y ago
I have a slightly different take on him, which comes to the same ultimate end on how I view his work. As he's shifted from primarily a journalist to primarily a storyteller, he's chosen to sacrifice additional information and accuracy in lieu of telling a consistent and compelling narrative that support what he thinks is the important thing to take away, not necessarily what you would take away were you to review all the same information yourself. Under that understanding, I find him fun to listen to. The things he "reports" on/illuminates are interesting, but at this point I don't assume he's giving them an even handed representation, so his conclusions are not necessarily my own, and at best it's a set of things to look into and research myself if I find my interest piqued after a fun or interesting story is told.
- daymanstep 3y ago
  But once you fact-check him a few times, then you won't be able to trust that his sources support his points anymore, which then raises the question: Is there ANY evidence that supports what Gladwell is trying to say? If the best evidence that Gladwell could find to support his points, don't support his points, then it really makes me question the utility of trying to find evidence to support Gladwell's points. It may be that, the reason why no subject matter expert makes the points that Gladwell does is because Gladwell's points are either wrong or not even wrong.
  - kbenson 3y ago
    The problem is that Gladwell comes off as trying to be scientific, when really he's just a persuasive storyteller. If you view Gladwell as a purveyor of facts or a science communicator, then he does a horrible job and yes, it's hard to trust whatever he presents because he's at best not very careful about his facts and conclusions. In that case, why would you ever pay attention to him? On the other hand if you see Gladwell for what I think he is, which is an entertaining storyteller using science as a backdrop to present his view of the world, and willing to twist it to suit his view, then he's really no different than many other writers. In that case you can enjoy him or not, at your leisure, just as you would any other editorial or op-ed piece. Entertainment is entertainment, and his content is entertaining even if I don't expect it to be true (to be clear, I'm approaching this as someone that mostly consumes his podcasts, which some chapters of his books have been directly converted to. I wouldn't want to spend the time reading this content that's not true, but I'm happy to listen to it while on a drive). Whether he's causing more harm than good overall to the public is another question, but honestly that's a much bigger discussion with a lot of much bigger problems than him, so I'm not sure it's worth getting worked up over.
    - sooheon 3y ago
      The problem with "take it or leave it, it's just a story" is that stories are not neutral, or cost-free. Memes compete for attention/proliferation/survival, and false-but-appealing memes outcompete true-but-boring memes. It's a mini DDOS attack on our collective bandwidth to be churning out durable falsehoods disguised as scientific insight.

Nurw 3y ago

Haha, yeah, I am reading the book these days, and I clearly remember thinking that those effects seemed really exaggerated.