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The response by Malcolm Gladwell is very thoughtful. The key point is that when the airline company Korean Air (which had already had to change its name after a

The response by Malcolm Gladwell is very thoughtful. The key point is that when the airline company Korean Air (which had already had to change its name after an earlier pilot error disaster) went into problem-solving mode, the airline itself identified changing cockpit communication culture as a step in solving its pilot error crash problem. Whatever else you can say about an airline company owned and based in Korea, you wouldn't expect it to have an inherent prejudice against Korean culture. It was thoughtful of the blog author to quote Gladwell's reply in full (as it appears he did). Gladwell is easy enough to misunderstand that I have had occasion to mention this on Hacker News before. Gladwell is a professional writer, and he does quite a lot of research on unfamiliar subjects that promise to include interesting story angles. In the subjects that I research for my own writing, I have more often than not discovered that Gladwell does a better than average job of finding and citing good sources. He originates few new scientific hypotheses himself, but he writes interesting and thought-provoking stories about leading scientists in disciplines facing tough problems. Any reader of a Malcolm Gladwell book (as I know, from being a reader of the book Outliers ) can check the sources, and decide from there what other sources to check and what other ideas to play with. Gladwell doesn't purport to write textbooks, but I give him a lot of credit for finding interesting scholarly sources that haven't had enough attention in the popular literature. He is equaled by very few authors as a story-teller who can tie ideas together in a thought-provoking assembly. Gladwell has said in an interview by a journalist that he writes to try out ideas: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html "Q: Do you worry that you extrapolate too much from too little? "A: No. It's better to err on the side of over-extrapolation. These books are playful in the sense that they regard ideas as things to experiment with. I'm happy if somebody reads my books and reaches a conclusion that is different from mine, as long as the ideas in the book cause them to think. You have to be willing to put pressure on theories, to push the envelope. That's the fun part, the exciting part. If you are writing an intellectual adventure story, why play it safe? I'm not out to convert people. I want to inspire and provoke them."

482924 13y ago
http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ "Malcolm Gladwell began as a college right-wing Reagan supporter, was trained by the tobacco-funded far-right National Journalism Center, and throughout his career has inserted pro-tobacco, pro-banking industry and pro-PHARMA messages into his books and articles. Gladwell can earn $1 million a year as a paid corporate speaker, sometimes from the very same corporations and industry groups he happens to promote and defend in print."
- paul_f 13y ago
  If I am understanding what you are saying, since MG's career and how he makes money is in a way you disapprove, then both his facts and opinions should be dismissed? Discuss. It is a bit pathetic to attack the person instead of the concepts they espouse.
  - gammarator 13y ago
    It's not the concepts, it's the conflict of interest: We assume Gladwell is telling us the unvarnished truth in a journalistic manner. You might find Gladwell's disclosure statement (or at least its length) revealing: http://www.gladwell.com/disclosure.html http://www.gladwell.com/disclosure.html
    - paulsutter 13y ago
      That's an interesting link. Reading it improved my opinion of Malcolm Gladwell (not easy - I've generally held him in low regard). Could you point to anything specific in his disclosure that would cast significant doubts on his ability to be objective?
  - marshray 13y ago
    When discussing someone who's written many books since, I think its not legitimate to focus on their college politics and early employer's funding sponsors. Nevertheless, Gladwell doesn't seem to claim to be a rigorous logician or scientist. He makes a "brand" out of his style of "food for thought" reasoning and the merits of his overall approach are certainly up for discussion.
chetanahuja 13y ago
"Q: Do you worry that you extrapolate too much from too little? "A: No. It's better to err on the side of over-extrapolation ..." That's all you need to know about his writing. Over-extrapolator of "trends" from some isolated fragments of information about fields he knows nothing about. Read his book as entertainment... sure. Somewhat like how you'd guffaw at an acerbic observation by a standup comedian without trying to read too much into the scientific validity of said observations. Or how you'd treat the claims of "4 out of 5 dentists recommend our floss" type claims. That's about the right level of credibility for his output.
coldtea 13y ago
>The response by Malcolm Gladwell is very thoughtful. The key point is that when the airline company Korean Air (which had already had to change its name after an earlier pilot error disaster) went into problem-solving mode, the airline itself identified changing cockpit communication culture as a step in solving its pilot error crash problem. That they did so doesn't necessarily mean they found "Korean culture" as the fault with their "cockpit communication". Their reasoning could just as well be that their pilots where not that good trained, and they brought in some experts. If a French software company is flailing and it brings in, say, Kent Beck and Martin Fowler to do some training, does that mean the company thinks it was their developers French culture that was the problem, or just that it thinks it was their lack of software process savvy? >Whatever else you can say about an airline company owned and based in Korea, you wouldn't expect it to have an inherent prejudice against Korean culture.* Why not? Lot's of countries have homeland-deprecating officials. Especially when the top dogs have studied abroad (they consider this makes them more worthy than the others, and tend to blame their culture for being backwards irrespective where they are right or wrong. In some sense they are like "adopted" --and brainwashed-- by the culture they studied in). Don't know if this was the case here, but both of those things happen.

482924 13y ago

http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ "Malcolm Gladwell began as a college right-wing Reagan supporter, was trained by the tobacco-funded far-right National Journalism Center, and throughout his career has inserted pro-tobacco, pro-banking industry and pro-PHARMA messages into his books and articles. Gladwell can earn $1 million a year as a paid corporate speaker, sometimes from the very same corporations and industry groups he happens to promote and defend in print."

paul_f 13y ago
If I am understanding what you are saying, since MG's career and how he makes money is in a way you disapprove, then both his facts and opinions should be dismissed? Discuss. It is a bit pathetic to attack the person instead of the concepts they espouse.
- gammarator 13y ago
  It's not the concepts, it's the conflict of interest: We assume Gladwell is telling us the unvarnished truth in a journalistic manner. You might find Gladwell's disclosure statement (or at least its length) revealing: http://www.gladwell.com/disclosure.html http://www.gladwell.com/disclosure.html
  - paulsutter 13y ago
    That's an interesting link. Reading it improved my opinion of Malcolm Gladwell (not easy - I've generally held him in low regard). Could you point to anything specific in his disclosure that would cast significant doubts on his ability to be objective?
- marshray 13y ago
  When discussing someone who's written many books since, I think its not legitimate to focus on their college politics and early employer's funding sponsors. Nevertheless, Gladwell doesn't seem to claim to be a rigorous logician or scientist. He makes a "brand" out of his style of "food for thought" reasoning and the merits of his overall approach are certainly up for discussion.

chetanahuja 13y ago

"Q: Do you worry that you extrapolate too much from too little? "A: No. It's better to err on the side of over-extrapolation ..." That's all you need to know about his writing. Over-extrapolator of "trends" from some isolated fragments of information about fields he knows nothing about. Read his book as entertainment... sure. Somewhat like how you'd guffaw at an acerbic observation by a standup comedian without trying to read too much into the scientific validity of said observations. Or how you'd treat the claims of "4 out of 5 dentists recommend our floss" type claims. That's about the right level of credibility for his output.

coldtea 13y ago

>The response by Malcolm Gladwell is very thoughtful. The key point is that when the airline company Korean Air (which had already had to change its name after an earlier pilot error disaster) went into problem-solving mode, the airline itself identified changing cockpit communication culture as a step in solving its pilot error crash problem. That they did so doesn't necessarily mean they found "Korean culture" as the fault with their "cockpit communication". Their reasoning could just as well be that their pilots where not that good trained, and they brought in some experts. If a French software company is flailing and it brings in, say, Kent Beck and Martin Fowler to do some training, does that mean the company thinks it was their developers French culture that was the problem, or just that it thinks it was their lack of software process savvy? >Whatever else you can say about an airline company owned and based in Korea, you wouldn't expect it to have an inherent prejudice against Korean culture.* Why not? Lot's of countries have homeland-deprecating officials. Especially when the top dogs have studied abroad (they consider this makes them more worthy than the others, and tend to blame their culture for being backwards irrespective where they are right or wrong. In some sense they are like "adopted" --and brainwashed-- by the culture they studied in). Don't know if this was the case here, but both of those things happen.