18 ms·

Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

• eric_the_read 13y ago
  I would just like to point out that this is quite possibly the only violation of Betteridge's Law I've found on HN in... gosh, quite some time. Maybe ever?
• bobbles 13y ago
  "I haven't read the book" But hey lets get some pageviews anyway right?
  • GeorgeOrr 13y ago
    Did he at least see the cover, in order to judge it?
    • wiml 13y ago
      Well, according to this great book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell (you might not have heard of him, but all the smart people are reading his stuff), one's first impression of something is sometimes amazingly accurate! So it's really not important that he read the book.
      • superuser2 13y ago
        Blink did qualify this with "sometimes." Your second sentence doesn't follow.
  • r0h1n 13y ago
    The critique is more of Gladwell's schtick or ouevre, than just latest book.
• foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Malcolm Gladwell : non-fiction journalism :: Fox News : television journalism It's entertaining fluff. If we become a society of fluffheads, that's okay, these things have a habit of correcting themselves.
  • morgante 13y ago
    I don't think that's quite right. Fox News encourages people not to think at all. Gladwell encourages people to think (the adjective thought-provoking is frequently applied to his work), even if his actual content isn't 100% true. Also, I don't think Gladwell ever completely lies. He certainly bends the truth, but he doesn't make up things on a whim like Fox.
    • lutusp 13y ago
      > Also, I don't think Gladwell ever completely lies. True, but we need to ask what we mean by "lie". Blatant lying is easy to detect and uncover. Cherry-picking facts to make a point contradicted by reality, by science, is a sneakier kind of lying, a kind meant to appeal to the superficially educated, the sort of people for whom the title of the article asks a reasonable question -- should we "believe him"? Educated people don't need to believe anyone -- they will instead accept a responsibility to gather facts, evidence, for themselves.
• ddellacosta 13y ago
  Interesting comment from the piece. Legit? Boyce Rensberger - 5:20pm 10/08/2013 Gladwell is the same Gladwell as when I was his editor at The Washington Post. At first, I fell for his approach and brought him over to the science pod from the Post's business staff. Then I realized that he cherry picks research findings to support just-so stories. Every time I sent him back to do more reporting on the rest of the story, he moaned and fumed. When I read his proposal for "The Tipping Point," I found it to be warmed over epidemiology. It was based on a concept and a perception so old it was already an ancient saying about straw and a camel's back. But gussied up in Malcolm's writing style, it struck the epidemiologically naive as brilliant. Brilliant enough to win an advance of more than $1 million.
  • Angostura 13y ago
    Looks quite plausible: http://web.med.harvard.edu/healthcaucus/bg_rensberger.html http://web.med.harvard.edu/healthcaucus/bg_rensberger.html
  • jessep 13y ago
    Yeah, this comment is my favorite part of the story. Hilarious to have someone with such direct experience commenting. Assuming they are who they say they are :)
• kiba 13y ago
  If you want actual scientific knowledge, read a textbook, not a breezy popular science book written by some journalist dude. For example, I am taking a CMU OLI course on introductory statistics, which is about 216 pages long. I am in it for 29 days at 151 pages thus far, which means I am about 70% complete. I study an hour a day, does about 30 minutes of review minimum each day. I admit that it's not the most exciting subject to learn and requires a lot of work. Although the subject isn't actually boring to learn. However, armed with knowledge of statistics, I will be able to spot more bullshit coming from writers like Malcolm Gladwell. Popular science books are not to be trusted, at the very least, without a subject matter expert's recommendation. They should be viewed as only entertainment.
  • r0h1n 13y ago
    I'm afraid you're comparing two entirely different genres. People who read popular non-fiction (on science, economics etc.) aren't looking to learn concepts the way you are. They, I surmise, want to read interesting stories that can be explained using science/economics etc. In other words, you're attempting to learn the science so you can apply it, while most others are attempting to read stories which can be explained using science.
    • kiba 13y ago
      In other words, you're attempting to learn the science so you can apply it, while most others are attempting to read stories which can be explained using science. I don't need to apply the scientific knowledge. I have gratification in knowing how reality work.
      • vdaniuk 13y ago
        Consider yourself lucky. It is currently impossible to flip a switch in the brain and get gratification from knowing. For those who do not enjoy understanding the inner workings the textbook aproach will never work.
      • pjmorris 13y ago
        Yes, and more power to you, but your boss, and his boss, and your city manager, and the people providing the services you have are basing their decisions on something. If it's pseudo-science instead of the real thing, you're still living with the consequences.
• jetru 13y ago
  Is this the same story with Freakonomics? I listen to their podcast and they seem pretty intelligent and don't really drawn crazy conclusions and always advice with a pinch of salt.
  • riffraff 13y ago
    I'd suppose there is a continuum from "totally made up" and the "100% true fact" and freakonomics leans a bit closer to the latter than gladwell, but e.g. the "names" prediction in the book was totally off (though I can't find the reference for this now).
    • shicky 13y ago
      is this 'Winner' and 'Loser' ?
• kareemm 13y ago
  Funny, I both started David and Goliath because I wanted to be entertained, and stopped about 10% of the way in because his constant extrapolations from anecdote to Gladwellian Law or Rule made me realize D&G was like a Buzzfeed article: entertaining, but ultimately unsatisfying.
• natural219 13y ago
  As a personal data point, I grew up reading lots of "entertaining" books that claimed to have intellectual value, but in hindsight didn't really end up being that intelligent. My early thought heroes were John Stossel, Chuck Palahniuk, Ayn Rand, the Freakonomics guys, and Michael Crichton. While my views have grown more sophisticated over the years, those early adventures into "intellectual" topics eventually led me to study these topics in more depth and expose me to new, more complicated ideas. So Gladwell's writings, if not specific scientific, may at least have some pedagogical value. Their entertainment value is certainly not questioned.
  • georgemcbay 13y ago
    I guess after the magic 10,000 hours of reading you became an expert on reading.
    • moocowduckquack 13y ago
      After 20,000 hours you get so good you can read in the bath without getting the pages wet. At that point you are ready to turn pro.
      • michaelt 13y ago
        Way ahead of you: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bath+book&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bath+book&tbm=isch
    • onebaddude 13y ago
      It's funny that people here are mocking Gladwell and Diamond for presenting popularized, simplified interpretations of the science, but those people are doing the same thing by simplifying the works of the authors. There's nothing "magic" about 10,000 hours. The implication is that hard work, practice and luck play a bigger role in success than most people believe. It's a theory. Sorry if it was too nuanced for you.
      • georgemcbay 13y ago
• willvarfar 13y ago
  For everyone feeling cheated by Malcolm Gladwell, there is relief in sight! Buy books by Simon Singh e.g. The Code Book and Fermat's Last Theorem; after his court tangle with homeopathy he needs all the royalties he can get!
  • digitalengineer 13y ago
    Could you elaborate a bit about his 'court tangle'? I'm reading 'Bad Science' which also talks about Homeopathy and it basically says homeopathy is relying on the Placebo effect, the attention patients receive and the probability a lot of people will resort to homeopathy when it's really, really bad. That's usually the point when it starts getting better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_(book) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_(book)
    • willvarfar 13y ago
      Apologies, his tangle was chiropractic not homeopathic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCA_v._Singh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCA_v._Singh My general point was two-fold: 1) he is an excellent popular science writer. He has a PhD in particle physics, and his books are well researched and well received. 2) we all want him to prosper from writing so he keeps writing :)
      • digitalengineer 13y ago
        H_O_L_Y crap. Just read his column 'Beware The Spinal trap' in The Guardian about chiropractic therapy. " if spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market." I have had this done a lot of times. No one ever told me about any of the risks before starting the procedure. Thanks for the information. http://esciencenews.com/sources/the.guardian.science/2010/04/15/simon.singh.beware.spinal.trap http://esciencenews.com/sources/the.guardian.science/2010/04...
    • mmcnickle 13y ago
      He was sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for writing in a newspaper column that they promoted "bogus treatments". Edit: Too late. I'd second the book recommendations though, they're excellent.
• morgante 13y ago
  I don't read Gladwell to learn anything. And that's okay—there are plenty of other places I read to learn. Like the rest of The New Yorker, what Gladwell provides is interesting, entertaining, and realistic stories. Whether those stories are entirely true or not just isn't relevant. It's about entertaining myself and occasionally having a thought-provoking discussion about Gladwell's work. None of this actually affects how I do my work or interact with the world. However, a good portion of this enjoyment is contingent on the stories ostensibly not being fiction, largely due to the "stranger than fiction" effect. If Gladwell were to write complete fiction, then we wouldn't have plausible lines of reality to reference in his work, or the entertainment of seeing the convolutions he makes in bending reality to his thesis.
• auctiontheory 13y ago
  You should have stopped long ago. Malcolm Gladwell as an entertainer is great. Gladwell as a pundit quoted by (and presumably influencing) real decision-makers ... has me steaming in frustration. He is dangerous.
  • Ygg2 13y ago
    Is he much worse than CSI? I mean I don't trust both, they have right details (like some study proving one thing, or name of disease), but overall miss the big picture. Also it seems that he sometimes hits a mark. I remember his article on criminal Profilers being mostly correct as far as I could tell. Anyone who trust a journalist unconditionally and blindly is a fool. They are paid to pique your interest and entertain you, not find out the truth (most people don't like the truth, I definitely wouldn't like all the truth about me to come into light). Just like someone that thinks that most crime TV series depict real life.
    • auctiontheory 13y ago
      I don't hear senior people in all sorts of professions referencing CSI the way I hear them referencing Malcolm Gladwell.
      • Ygg2 13y ago
        Umm, isn't there a CSI effect, as in judges changed their sentences, because there wasn't enough certainity in the proofs provided by real forensic experts? Isn't that bigger impact than anything Gladwell's stories had on policies?
      • ctdonath 13y ago
        There is a disturbing number of jurors who won't convict the guilty because the evidence isn't as blindingly solid as CSI makes it seem necessary, or dismiss blindingly solid evidence because they expect some wildly implausible CSI-like theory is likely the truth.
    • lutusp 13y ago
      > Is he much worse than CSI? People who accept CSI confuse fantasy and reality. People who accept Gladwell confuse a contrived reality with a real one. I think the risk posed by the latter category is greater than the former, because the latter are more difficult to separate from their superficial grasp of reality.
• linux_devil 13y ago
  Malcolm Gladwell's piece is like a fiction in Decision making . I will still prefer likes of Daniel Khaneman and others. Should have read "Thinking Fast and Slow" long ago.
  • jpalomaki 13y ago
    Thinking Fast and Slow at least mentions many similar experiments and the results are often interesting, so it is probably worth reading if the topic is of interest (and it probably should be). I have't looked at the actual research behind the topics they are covering, but at least there seems to be a good reference list in the book so it should be possible dig out the articles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555 http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/...
• crntaylor 13y ago
  I have heard the genre (which includes Malcolm Gladwell, Jonah Lehrer, the Freakonomics guys and Jared Diamond) described as "insight porn". The idea is to deliver small chunks of insight that is just counter-intuitive enough to be novel, but not so counter-intuitive that we can't take it at face value. It's a market that's developed in response to the fact that nerds are addicted to feeling like they're just a little bit smarter than everyone else. I think the same rush we get from learning something counter-intuitive and novel is the same reason that many of us have read pg's essays - particularly the early ones. Edit: It occurs to me that this comment could be seen as an example of what it describes...
  • mmaunder 13y ago
    Upvoted comment for making me feel just a little bit smarter.
  • svantana 13y ago
    Just like with music, people prefer just the right amount of cognitive dissonance - noone likes to be told exactly what they already know, and hardly anyone likes to hear something that's completely the opposite of what they already knew/thought. In music, just a little bit of (harmonic) dissonance catches the listener's attention, but too much gives you a headache. Funny how that metaphor carries over so well, haven't thought of it before.
    • jamesrom 13y ago
      You should write a book about it...
    • visakanv 13y ago
      So I think of people like Gladwell as pop-fusion artists, like say, Jamie Cullum or Michael Buble. They often get disproportionately rewarded (as compared to "real" jazz artists), but they DO do a lot for a lot of people by introducing them to something they otherwise might not have considered.
    • yesbabyyes 13y ago
      Interesting theory. I like it. Nice to see you around here, Svante!
• hingisundhorsa 13y ago
  Could someone help me out, I've read Pinker's criticisms, Chablis' and others, but I don't feel convinced because they all seem to be generic attacks on accuracy. From their articles, I was not able to identify a specific point that Gladwell has made that is false. Lets take for example, his most recent book, David & Goliath. I was impressed by his unusual look at the David coming down the valley story in a new light including Goliath being a sufferer of pitiutary defect (hence the weak vision). Is that analysis somehow wrong? It doesn't seem to be any more wrong than other analysis I've seen, eg: Pinker's claim that violence has been decreasing over the ages.
  • lutusp 13y ago
    > From their articles, I was not able to identify a specific point that Gladwell has made that is false. There are many such cases, easy to uncover. As just one example, his remarks about easy versus difficult problem solving relied on a preliminary study that failed replication when applied to a larger experimental group, a fact he omitted from his book. > I was impressed by his unusual look at the David coming down the valley story in a new light including Goliath being a sufferer of pitiutary defect (hence the weak vision). Is that analysis somehow wrong? To answer, I have to ask "is fiction wrong?" Can a fictional account about fictional characters ever truly be called "wrong"? Whatever novel conclusion made about the David and Goliath story must confront the fact that it's an anecdote about an anecdote.
    • thesadman 13y ago
      OP asked for a specific point. You wrote: "his remarks about easy versus difficult problem solving relied on a preliminary study that failed replication when applied to a larger experimental group, a fact he omitted from his book". Could a layperson work out which specific point you're referring to and then understand it? Perhaps you'd care to elaborate.
      • lutusp 13y ago
        > OP asked for a specific point. Indeed he did -- he said, "I was not able to identify a specific point that Gladwell has made that is false." In my reply, I gave an example where Gladwell published something that had not been replicated, always a risky practice in science journalism, but worse, it was an example in which an ambitious effort at replication has failed. In short, Gladwell published something that had been proven false, a case in which a cautious reading of the literature would have prevented this error. Also, the original study came from the field of psychology, a field that's famous for superficial studies that lead to grand but unsupportable claims. Even for psychology studies that have stood unchallenged for years, one must be very careful in taking their conclusions seriously. The Gladwell example I used represented something that was false, that had been falsified, something that all scientific results, to meet the definition of "scientific", must have as a possible outcome (testable and potentially falsifiable).
• downandout 13y ago
  This seems like a fit of jealousy to me. Malcom Gladwell makes no claim that the observations mentioned in his books meet any scientific standards. His points are usually correct (though obvious to many); in this case his point is that adversity often breeds success in ambitious people (e.g. Princeton students, not necessarily random students at a public college). Perhaps he cherry picks examples to prove those points, but having read his books and the recent criticisms of them, I still don't feel that I have been lied to. Gladwell does what many successful authors in this genre do: he tells us what we already intuitively know in a palatable way that makes the concepts feel new. It makes people feel justified in their belief that they can overcome seemingly daunting challenges when they see it in print by a noted author. His books may not reveal groundbreaking results of scientific studies, but they justify the views of the kinds of people that read his books, and that will tend to make them successful regardless of the scientific accuracy of any examples mentioned in his books.
  • deleted 13y ago
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  • antimagic 13y ago
    Huh? "His points are usually correct (though obvious to many); in this case his point is that adversity often breeds success in ambitious people." No. Just no. Did you not read the article? The study demonstrating this "point" was a low-powered study. A more highly powered study failed to reproduce the result. Now, at best you could say that the result only applies to "ambitious people", but that remains to be proved - after the Canadian result, the null hypothesis has to be that making the task superficially more difficult has no impact on people's ability to complete the task. In other words, Gladwell's hypothesis is unproven and unjustified.
    • downandout 13y ago
      Actually, you (and the jealous author of the critical article) are comparing apples to oranges. It is a safe assumption that a group of random students at a public Canadian university are not nearly as ambitious as a group of students at an impossibly competitive university such as Princeton. The study does in fact show that adversity often breeds success in ambitious people. So, the results were as expected. The ambitious group was inspired by the challenge. A group of average public college students were neither inspired nor deterred by it. And I would bet that my house that a group of homeless people would be significantly deterred by it. It is an apples to oranges comparison that in no way disproves Gladwell's hypothesis.
• golergka 13y ago
  I think that it's far more universal problem: http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_final02.pdf http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_fina...
• lutusp 13y ago
  > Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell? As long as people think believing stands higher than understanding, people like Gladwell will find a wide audience.
• cormullion 13y ago
  Another review (of the book) at http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/malcolm-gladwell-backlash-pseudo-profundity http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/malcolm-gladwell-backlas... "Gladwell is the non-fiction equivalent of Dan Brown."
  • Brakenshire 13y ago
    > So, Gladwell promises that our alleged misunderstanding has “consequences for everything from the way we educate our children to the way we fight crime and disorder”. Consequences for everything! That is the hard sell, the first free rock of intellectual crack. > The examples of “everything” include basketball coaching, policing, university science, Martin Luther King, and the Impressionists. (The waft of luxury art-history tourism in the Impressionists sequence is only the most obvious example of how Gladwell is now the non-fiction equivalent of Dan Brown.) The promise that such heterogeneous matter can be governed by one or two big ideas and understood through them constitutes the main attraction of the Gladwellian literary genre. Armed with these “ideas”, you won’t have to think for yourself ever again. Ouch.
• seehafer 13y ago
  TL;DR Yes.
• bborud 13y ago
  Which is harder: to make people like Gladwell scientifically sound or to make the scientifically sound more entertaining? While I strongly agree that he does himself, and those curious about science, a great disservice by what one might label as intellectual laziness and sloppiness, there is a need to make science and interesting ideas more available to the public. So while the criticism of Gladwell's cherry-picking and rough treatment of the truth appears to be valid, we should ask ourselves "what have I done to make ideas more accessible to others"? I think this is why we love people like Carl Sagan. He made science accessible. He showed a whole generation of kids that science is cool and interesting and beautiful. Without (to my knowledge) compromising scientific integrity.
  • visakanv 13y ago
    Bill Nye the Science Guy Show: "Rules" Objective: Change the world. Produce a TV show that gets kids and adults excited about science, so that the United States will again be the world leader in technology, innovation, and sound management of the environment. For example, when our audience is of age, we'd like them to produce the best transportation systems in the world, e.g. cars, electric cars, trains, and aircraft. Rules of the Road - The show is entertainment first; curriculum content and presentation of specific facts come later. Ideally, school curricula will follow us. - All the science we see has to be real science. No fictional “molecular resynthesizer“ machines that perform magic tricks, for example. - The science being explored provides the drama. For example, there is no time spent looking for someone's stolen lab coat. - Science Guy is always himself. He could play another character as the Science Guy playing another character. He wears a lab coat and safety glasses for a reason. If he takes them off, it's for a reason. - Science Guy's reality is television. He can jump from place to place the way a viewer would expect anyone on television to be able to do. There is no need for something like the “Way-Back" machine or the “Transporter” or the "Door to Anywhere." However, the “monitor in the field" can show us supplementary video, e.g. condensation after the walk-in freezer sequence in the pilot. - Host interacts with guests. kids, other scientists, and celebrities, as peers: E.g. “Hi, Joey; Hi, Michael; "Hi, Cindy; Hi Hammer." / "Hi, Bill." - Show takes place as much as possible in the field. The world is the laboratory.
  • jacquesm 13y ago
• alexdowad 13y ago
  Should I stop believing Malcolm Gladwell? This title was a non sequitur for me, as I have never heard of Malcolm Gladwell and so never started believing him. Interesting article though.
  • ctdonath 13y ago
    Rule of thumb: any headline which asks a yes/no question has an answer of "no".
• 6ren 13y ago
  Scary fact: everything you "know" is based on convincing storytelling. Perhaps reading Gladwell is a good way to be reminded of this, that all knowledge is tentative, subject to revision. (If yours isn't, you're dogmatic, an epistemological fundamentalist! Even logic has completeness/consistency limitations. At least, those are the limitations we know of so far...).
  • foobarbazqux 13y ago
    When you say storytelling, I think you're only talking about knowledge by description. Knowledge by acquaintance is equally valid, and is based on direct experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_by_description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_by_description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_by_acquaintance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_by_acquaintance
• mpweiher 13y ago
  Yes. For example, the story about TIMMs scores showing that math ability is correlated not with talent but with effort is completely bogus, and obviously so if you look at the actual studies. First, the effect only appeared for 2 age levels in one year of taking, all the other age levels did not show this correlation. Second, the effect only shows at the national level, if you compare whole countries. It disappears completely as soon as you go down to school or class levels. Which means that his claim in the book is completely bogus: yes, nations are not more talented at math than others (duh!), but individuals still are, completely contrary to his claims. That goes way beyond just cherry picking results.
• siliconviking 13y ago
  Not to seem unfairly partial towards Steve Jobs, but after Malcolm Gladwell's repeated rants against him, I started trusting his (Gladwell's) judgement a whole lot less.
• JonnieCache 13y ago
  Between this and yesterday's Gladwell-doubting article it seems Malcolm has reached a tipping point of his very own.
  • deleted 13y ago
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• thewarrior 13y ago
  If not people like Gladwell then what should we be really reading ?
• noonespecial 13y ago
  Gladwell does the literary equivalent of this: http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Barack-Obama-Caricature-barack-obama-749115_348_450.jpg http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Barack-Obama-C... The world he presents is a cartoon caricature of the real world. In the drawing linked above, you can clearly recognize the president, but you wouldn't use the drawing to fit him for a hat. His prominent features are overemphasized in interesting and humorous ways for the purpose of sparking delighted recognition in the viewer. Gladwell does the same thing in words. He presents us with a caricature of our world with its features humorously exaggerated in order to spark the same sort of recognition. tl;dr. Its a funny. Don't use it for science.
  • gnaffle 13y ago
    It's not a very good comparison. First, it's not presented as funny, it's presented as science, complete with links to studies. If you ask most people reading Gladwell, they will believe his theories. Second, it's not that he exaggerates something, but often he's flat-out wrong. The fascination he sparks is the "oh, that's an unlikely fact I wouldn't have believed was true, had it not been for the fact that these science studies cited here proves it."
    • d23 13y ago
      > Second, it's not that he exaggerates something, but often he's flat-out wrong. Eh, is it though? I confess I haven't read much by him, but it seems like most of his works are truisms anyway (e.g. if something's hard, it'll make you work harder!).
      • gnaffle 13y ago
        Here's at least one: I've read some rebuttals to the "ethnic theory of plane crashes" here: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline-safety http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline-safety and here: http://askakorean.blogspot.no/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-airplane.html http://askakorean.blogspot.no/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-a... Put it simply, Gladwell seems to form a theory, then find enough facts to support that theory. But that's not the way to do proper research. In this case, had he actually consulted with pilots, koreans, and finally korean pilots, he might have ended up with a different conclusion (let alone now have made so many trivial errors in the text). He could also have compared accident statistics and looked at how many accidents could be attributed to poor CRM in different countries. But again, he didn't do that. He mentions that CRM training is used nowadays in all airlines (to improve crew collaboration) but fails to mention that the accident that sparked the focus on CRM (the worst airline accident of all time) was caused by a Dutch captain, from a country with a low power-distance index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster)
• lotsofcows 13y ago
  Believe? Odd choice of word. If a subject is important to you, read around it and make up your own mind. Gladwell usually cites his sources. Just don't fall into the trap of only reading the given sources, look for updated and contraindicative papers.
• arshia 13y ago
  Great piece by Chris Chabris in Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/10/malcolm_gladwell_critique_david_and_goliath_misrepresents_the_science.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201... - "I thought he was sincerely misunderstanding the science, but he knows exactly what he is doing."
• mattmanser 13y ago
  There was an article yesterday which I found far better written and researched on here yesterday trashing Gladwell's science that didn't get much traction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6519843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6519843
• krmmalik 13y ago
  What did it for me was a TED talk of Gladwell, a good few years ago. It was a talk about marketing and the point he wanted to make was that diversification (multiple lines of the same product) was the answer. I took it for granted at the time - and having read "The Tipping Point" before then, I felt he was the man to follow. But having tried it it in the real world, I realised most of what he was saying just didn't hold.
• logicallee 13y ago
  Gladwell's books are both valid and surprising. Unfortunately, the parts that are valid aren't surprising, and the parts that are surprising aren't valid.
• kabisote 13y ago
  > are based on what's really going on Where can we actually get accurate information of what's really going on? News? Government? Businesses? Church? Blogs? Forums?
• ctdonath 13y ago
  The issue is just a larger-scale version of a common social problem I constantly see on blog discussions: Critics demand encyclopedic thoroughness for what is little more than brief casual conversation. Someone writes a pithy & insightful blog post (a la HN). It fits a convenient size suitable for the medium (1-10 paragraphs). Rather than responding to the substantive point of the post, critics nit-pick some obscure point which the author glossed over precisely because more detail runs at odds to the medium. To wit: the criticism amounts to demands for peer-reviewed scientific process with rock-solid presentation & references, when said critic would in no way actually read such material. Gladwell's (and many other writers', ex.: 1491 and A History Of The World In Six Glasses) works are like this. The books are not weighty tomes, they are not peer-reviewed, they are not scientific papers with rigorous analysis of the material. They are lightweight overviews of interesting insights, appealing to many people (enough so that some expend energy loudly criticizing the works), and providing launching points for those so motivated to further pursue the subject (such as the would-be pro golfer testing the "10,000 hours" theory by actually doing it). If Gladwell et al wrote books the way critics demand, critics (and pretty much everyone else) would never bother reading them. "the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." - Ratatouille
  • protonfish 13y ago
    This is a false dichotomy - there is no reason that being factually accurate prevents writing from being entertaining and accessible. Both can be done in the same piece if the author is willing. It is unfortunate that many science writers don't care about good writing and many writers don't care about truth.
  • DanBC 13y ago
    > They are lightweight overviews of interesting insights, appealing to many people (enough so that some expend energy loudly criticizing the works), and providing launching points for those so motivated to further pursue the subject What use is an overview if it's wrong? Here's an example of the problem: (http://www.social-consciousness.com/2013/10/ten-simple-things-you-can-do-today-that-will-make-you-happier-backed-by-science.html http://www.social-consciousness.com/2013/10/ten-simple-thing...) This blog got posted to HN. The first point in the post says: > Exercise has such a profound effect on our happiness and well-being that it's actually been proven to be an effective strategy for overcoming depression. In a study cited in Shawn Achor's book, The Happiness Advantage, three groups of patients treated their depression with either medication, exercise, or a combination of the two. The results of this study really surprised me. Although all three groups experienced similar improvements in their happiness levels to begin with, the follow up assessments proved to be radically different: A blog cites a pop sci book, which cites a single study. And this is "proof" of a treatment for depression. It feels like it should be true. it repeats something that many people say ("exercise helps depression") and it has some sciencey stuff to support it (endorphins!). It's not homoeopathy or crystal healing. The main problem is that it is not clear if exercise works for treating depression. http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004366/exercise-for-depression http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004366/exercise-for-depressi... > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. [...] > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive. People do not investigate further. They repeat these factoids and they believe they're promoting science.
• tokenadult 13y ago
  "I haven't read the book; I'm taking this example from a review in The Wall Street Journal by Christopher F. Chabris, a psychology professor at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y." Well, come on then. This is just blogspam in that case. We have already discussed Chabris's review (in its longer form from Chabris's blog) here on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6510996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6510996 We should stop believing ANYONE just because of their name or their previously published writings. We should read anything we read with our minds active, ready to disagree if the facts warrant. And that is what Malcolm Gladwell himself has said in interviews: "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."
  • redthrowaway 13y ago
    The piece isn't a review of Gladwell's book, nor is its thesis predicated upon the (de)merits thereof. He's saying Gladwell as a whole, in all of his works, may be Considered Harmful. You don't have to read his latest book to cogently draw that conclusion.
• avenger123 13y ago
  "Don't leave your brain by the door." The above should be the disclaimer on these types of books. I like Gladwell but there still needs to be some level of critical thinking involved when reading these books. I like to take the main ideas and do further investigation on my own.
• kamakazizuru 13y ago
  anyone else also feel this way about Tim Ferriss's stuff? I know theres a huge community of 4HWW fanboys around here so don't take it personally. However - I did have the feeling reading most of Ferriss' books that he essentially did just what Gladwell does - say something counterintuitive - back it up with some sort of studies (though he bothers even less to do that than Gladwell does) and even worse - personal anecdotal evidence! (What still cracks me up is - "I put my phone away from my pocket for a week and my sperm count went up" ..Geez).
• tommorris 13y ago
  Yes. That was just my adaptive unconscious coming to a rapid blink of an insight rather than a long and convoluted reasoning process. Mr Gladwell seems to think the former is okay though, so I'm sticking with my gut instinct.
• pg 13y ago
  "I haven't read the book" That could be a useful prelude to writing about it.
  • unreal37 13y ago
    Oh but he read a review of it! That's got to be the same as reading it, right?
  • aero142 13y ago
    I think his last paragraph sums it up. "I have long been an admirer of Gladwell's; I wish I could put stories together the way he does. But I'm now afraid to read him. My work, my intellectual life, and even my social and emotional experiences with my family are based on knowing what's really going on--not Gladwell's made-up ideas of how things should be. I don't want to base my reading, or my life, on Gladwell's currency: things that might or might not be true, but which make possible masterful storytelling." I often have a hard time remembering where I learned something so it makes it hard to keep strait why I think something is true. As a result, I try very hard to avoid talented liars.
  • unclebucknasty 13y ago
    The article is more about Gladwell than about his latest book.
    • jamesrom 13y ago
      No, the article is clearly about Gladwell's work.
      • unclebucknasty 13y ago
        Yes. This is what I meant. Let me clarify: The article is more about Gladwell's approach/style overall than about his latest book, specifically.
• gmisra 13y ago
  This entire problem would go away if Gladwell's writings were classified as speculative fiction instead of non-fiction.
• pjdorrell 13y ago
  The complaint seems to be that entertaining books are not sufficiently educational. What I think we should really be complaining about is that educational books are not sufficiently entertaining. Many of the startup websites promoted on Hacker News go to extreme lengths to reduce "cognitive load" - to make everything as easy as possible for their users to understand what they are doing. Entertainment is content presented to us in a manner which does not require unpleasant effort on our part to maintain our attention as readers, listeners or viewers. When text-book writers put the same effort into making their content entertaining as startup websites put into the UX of their websites, then we will have an educational revolution. Actually, for most people, video is more entertaining than books, so the best results will come from making entertaining videos on technical subjects. It is much easier to be entertaining if your content is "fluffy", and some of the most entertaining content is about "almost nothing at all", like Seinfeld, for example. But that is no excuse for neglecting the need to make serious content as entertaining as possible. To get some ideas about how to make technical content more entertaining, try the following: * Search for your favourite technical subject on YouTube, and watch the most popular videos. * Still on YouTube, search for "vlog", or "youtubers", or anything else that leads to videos made specifically for YouTube which include visual and verbal presentation of non-fictional content and commentary. (For example, see Ray William Johnson.) * Observe the difference. * Don't just observe the difference. Revisit the technical videos, and identify each point of pain, where the video requires effort of the viewer in a manner that would never have occurred in the "entertaining" videos. It could be things as simple as an extended interval where nothing happens at all, or too much talking and nothing happening on the screen, or the talking consists entirely of reading words that are already on the screen, or action on the screen but no talking, or too much talking about what the presenter is going to talk about. Etc.
• Anon84 13y ago
  When did we start?
• drblast 13y ago
  Malcolm Gladwell has the same problem as any of the other 100's of authors of those shitty "How to win!" business books. It's not that what he's saying is not true, it's that you don't get the whole picture, because actually giving you the whole picture would take a whole lot more time to research and wouldn't be half as entertaining. The best example are the "Good to Great" series of books that espouse what companies should to be successful, neglecting to mention that the majority of the companies held up as examples from the previous book have somehow spectacularly failed. The books aren't predictive because they're based on an extremely flawed methodology that cherry-picks data to fit pre-conceived notions. Also, success on the scale that most people reading these books aspire to requires a huge amount of luck no matter how hard you work, what short and long-term goals you create, or how early you wake up every day to run four miles. But most people won't read books titled "Preparing For Modest Success from a Lifetime of Hard Work and Saving" or "Success Secrets: Being Lucky."
• YZF 13y ago
  "I haven't read the book;" - I think we can stop reading the book review right about there.
• aschearer 13y ago
  I don't have any opinion one way or another about Gladwell but it really lowers my opinion of MIT to see them publishing posts such as this. The author has not read the book in question (or for all I know any book by Gladwell) and seems to be regurgitating the argument of a second author. I'd expect this from some rag not MIT.
• spinlock 13y ago
  Should we stop believing book reviewers who haven't read the book?
• dcre 13y ago
  As one of the comments on the article points out, it's amusing that Steven Pinker is one of the cited critics, given his own record of writing intellectual feel-goodery. Pinker: "To begin with, the findings of science entail that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures—their theories of the origins of life, humans, and societies—are factually mistaken."[1] [1] http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114127/science-not-enemy-humanities http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114127/science-not-enemy-...
• codex 13y ago
  The New Yorker recently ran an article with a bevy of scientific studies on redshirting [1] which confirm Gladwell's latest thesis that adversity improves performance. The relative overachievement of immigrant populations tends to support this view as well, but of course you may have selection bias there. [1] http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/youngest-kid-smartest-kid.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/young...
• jrockway 13y ago
  It takes 10,000 hours of practice to disbelieve Malcolm Gladwell.
• tnorris 13y ago
  Gladwell responds: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/10/malcolm_gladwell_s_david_and_goliath_he_explains_why_christopher_chabris.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...