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Malcolm Gladwell's response to Steven Pinker's review of his new book
- paulgb 17y agoPinker's review: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- bh23ha 17y agoThis does a great job refuting one of Pinker's fact based counter examples. It in no way refutes the core thesis of Pinker's review, that Gladwell is full shit.
- MikeCapone 17y agoThat was my thought exactly. He zoomed in on the one wrong thing he could find and tried to associate the whole review with that thing. An honest reply would be to say: Pinker got everything right except this football thing. In this case, the "everything else" is of much higher importance than the football thing.
- neilc 17y agoHe zoomed in on the one wrong thing he could find Not necessarily: the key to getting a letter to the editor published is to make a single coherent point, and to express yourself well. A letter to the editor is not the right venue for a point-by-point refutation of someone else's work.
- MikeCapone 17y agoI agree, but he did have options. Why didn't he do it on his blog, then? Or say at the end of a letter: For a more complete response to pinker, see [URL]. We can conclude that he either had lots of other good arguments but chose to focus on that minor one, or that he didn't have good rebuttals for the other things.
- run4yourlives 17y agoThe fact that he pointed out a error in analysis in no way affects your opinion of the conclusion? The whole point of Gladwell's assertion is that if Pinker is this haphazard in gathering supporting data, perhaps his entire review is nothing more than opinion. While there's nothing wrong with that - being a review and all - it certainly isn't a factual debunking of data. (btw I'm not debunking the assertion, just your reasoning)
- dejb 17y agoWhen he spends a whole essay refuting less than a third of a sentence in the original criticism the impact is diluted to very little indeed. The fact that he doesn't respond to any of the other factual assertions is more telling to me.
- abefortas 17y agoI agree he's full of shit, but to be fair, that was one of Pinker's relatively few factual examples. I think it was good form on Gladwell's part to address only facts and not Pinker's thesis.
- nixme 17y agoWhat do Sailor's beliefs about an unrelated issue have to do with his analysis of NFL draft positions and performance? Gladwell's retort would have been better without that.
- spamizbad 17y agoHow about the fact that Steve Sailer has absolutely no domain knowledge of NFL draft picks besides being (maybe) an American football fan? I'm familiar with Sailer myself, and I'd say anyone who uses him to back up their hypothesis is suspect. Every angle Sailer plays is somehow tied to race and the genetics of race; it's neither objective nor logical.
- zach 17y agoSailer's introduction to many, including myself, was his posting of mile-long screeds, primarily regarding race and IQ, in the comments of Gladwell's blog. He was banned from same and his comments removed in late 2006: http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/12/the_lunatic_fri.html http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/12/the_lunatic_... He seems to be trying to make a name of himself in part by carrying on a one-sided debate with Gladwell, which in itself makes him a suspect source even if he wasn't already familiar to the blog's long-time readers.
- VictorC 17y agoSailer's posts were not screeds. They were well-argued and relevant, just like his contributions in the current debate. He was not banned. Gladwell made his readers vote whether or not he should stay, and they overwhelmingly voted in support of Sailer. Nor were his comments removed.
- hexis 17y agoThis is an instance of poisoning the well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
- pmichaud 17y agoI didn't like the implied ad hominems much 8/ Respect for Gladwell--;
- pmichaud 17y agoAm I to take the downvotes to mean we like to undermine the credibility of people by saying things like "...who is best known for his belief that black people are intellectually inferior to white people" before we address the actual data? It's cute, yeah, but it's also fallacious argumentation. Even if the smear is true, which Galdwell doesn't substantiate, it's not relevant to the data. He points out why the data is weak--and that part is fine--my issue was with his extraneous ad hominem. But apparently here on HN, ad hominems are a-ok, as long as they are clever and make for a good read, right?
- xiaoma 17y agoGladwell seems to rely on ad-homenim. Calling Pinker an IQ "fundamentalist" is a bit over the top, too, especially in light of Pinker's moderate writings that point to the relevance of both environment and heredity.
- thaumaturgy 17y agoNo, he doesn't. The closest thing to a true ad-hominem fallacious point in his reply would be his mentioning of Sailer's opinion that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites. However, he immediately follows that up by addressing Sailer's actual data, cited by Pinker. I need a fancy-sounding Latin term for "trotting out 'ad hominem' when there is no such thing"...
- ellyagg 17y agoIn real life, virtually no one uses true ad hominem. No on says, "he is a jerk, therefore he's wrong." In my book, using insults and connotative (negative) language rather than strictly denotative is on the ad hominem scale. It is absolutely designed to undermine the credibility of the person you're debating while not engaging the argument at all. This new meme that started on reddit claiming ad hominem isn't ad hominem is weird. We shouldn't defend argument techniques that make truth-seeking harder. There's a time and a place for ad hominem and that time and place is entertainment writing.
- thaumaturgy 17y agoMmm, a debate about debates. How meta. I have a couple of problems with this. First, by broadly sweeping "everything I don't like about arguments" under the label "ad hominem", you're powerfully eroding the usefulness of the term. It has a specific use and purpose, and it's useful to understand the various fallacies in debate (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/). Also, you admit that this style of debate has a place in entertainment writing -- in a thread about his letter to the editor. This was not a formal debate, nor was it the appropriate forum for such; he was writing a response that would reach a large number of readers, and they were his audience. Besides, aren't you committing the selfsame fallacy that you're accusing him of, according to your own rules? i.e., "Gladwell used methods I don't like, so he's wrong." I wasn't aware that this was a Reddit meme. I stopped visiting Reddit some months ago, and my usage fell off even before then. I'm glad it is, though. If someone's going to try and bolster their criticism of someone else by using fancy Latin phrases, they really ought to get called out on it by someone that knows better.
- biznerd 17y agoI was absolutely shocked when Pinker's writing revealed that Gladwell in his book referred to an "igon value" (instead of eigenvalue, which I learned about in the second week of my Linear Algebra class.) How the hell does someone lecturing us on social sciences have little-to-no math background?
- benmathes 17y agoHow the hell does someone lecturing us on social sciences have little-to-no math background? Are you being intentionally humorous? I thought it was a sad but accepted fact that, on the aggregate, the Social Sciences were largely rather unscientific.
- defen 17y agoBertrand Russell had his own take on the "Igon Value Problem": A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
- neilc 17y agoA binary distinction between "stupid" (Gladwell?) and "clever" (domain expert) isn't very helpful here. Gladwell's ability to take obscure scientific results and present them in a relevant, insightful way is very powerful. If anything, I think the lesson is about being careful when drawing conclusions outside your domain of expertise, and that it is always helpful to get outside reviewers for your work (astonishing that a mistake of this magnitude slipped into a published book!).
- tokenadult 17y agoThis is a very interesting comparison of how to do research well with how to do research poorly, with the journalist coming out better than the academic. After edit: I'll have to check a Pinker book reference after I return from PZ Myers's debate this evening to give a more focused example of what Pinker can miss while doing research.
- defen 17y agoUnfortunately the original research paper by Berri and Simmons is locked up behind a paywall. But Sailer does seem to make a good point - if you measure QB performance on a per-play basis, the low-end of the draft order is going to be dominated by the few Tom Brady's of the world (draft number 199, 3 Super Bowl rings, lots of plays) because most late draft picks don't even get any NFL snaps. It would be like saying IQ is not correlated with Nobel Prize awards, if you only look at people who have earned PhD's.
- protomyth 17y agoActually the Pro Bowl thing might not be bad. Am I missing something or is Gladwell not taking in account the fact that higher draft pick QBs play on worse teams then QBs taken later in the round? Also, QBs taken later in the round will probably be allowed a season to learn and mature as opposed to first round picks who will play right away because of the large salary.
- gruseom 17y agoA weak defense, insofar as he picked only one point to go all-in on, and it's probably the least significant one. Also, notice his attempt to trivialize "igon value" as "my spelling"; the appropriate phrase would have been "my ignorance". I'd say this rebuttal does more to expose Gladwell as a sleight-of-hand artist than Pinker's actual critique did. It doesn't mean that Gladwell isn't a superbly entertaining writer and storyteller, though; and at his best, a popularizer of damned interesting stuff.
- kingkongreveng_ 17y agoThe thing is he's strictly a popularizer of flattering stuff. It's all designed to make his bourgeois readership feel like they have special insights, or feel good about themselves. One would think a lot of uncomfortable truths or null results (common sense or the experts are actually right) would come up, but they never do.
- evgen 17y agoAs long as we are returning to the "Gladwell is full of shit" meme, I recommend the Vanity Fair satire of Gladwell (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-200912 http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-...) for anyone in search of a quick laugh.
- gruseom 17y agoWow. That is hilarious. Takes the piss out of a large swath of middlebrow journalism along with Gladwell, too. “The conclusion is both remarkable and inescapable but also—most importantly—counter-intuitive,” Dr. Bunquum told me over a glass of organic lemonade in his stunning waterstulp, or waterside studio, near Rotterdam. I'm trying hard not to giggle because the person next to me is actually getting work done. Oh yeah, work...
- credo 17y agoI'm surprised that all responses seem to be on Pinker's side, but here is my take on it >>What do Sailor's beliefs about an unrelated issue have to do with his analysis of NFL Well, the credibility of a source (and his past "research" conclusion about racial superiority) is a factor in reviewing conclusions. >>Gladwell seems to rely on ad-homenim. This is subjective, but imo calling Pinker an "IQ fundamentalist" is a pretty mild response to the much more harsh attacks from Pinker. >>I was absolutely shocked when Pinker's writing revealed that Gladwell in his book referred to an "igon value" imo questionable spelling is better than questionable data.
- Devilboy 17y agoIf you're writing entire chapters on 'igon values' then obviously you've never read a single page on the topic. I'm sorry but this is not about forgetting to click 'spell check'.
- credo 17y ago>>If you're writing entire chapters on 'igon values' Pinker's review says thatthe book "quotes an expert speaking about an 'igon value' (that’s eigenvalue,.." I haven't read the book. Are you sure that Pinker was downplaying the "igon value" issue and that Gladwell really wrote "entire chapters on 'igon values'" ? Which entire chapters are about "igon values" ?
- dgabriel 17y agoThere aren't entire chapters. It appears in a quote by a mathematician. Gladwell isn't trying to explain mathematics poorly, he's transcribing poorly.
- BRadmin 17y agoHere's the original New Yorker article: http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_04_29_a_blowingup.htm http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_04_29_a_blowingup.htm
- geebee 17y ago
- kul 17y agoI was left feeling completely dissatisfied with this response. It came across as childish.
- omouse 17y agoSo two soft scientists are fighting? Who cares?
- epi0Bauqu 17y agoPinker is not a soft scientist.
- drp 17y agoGladwell is a journalist, not a scientist.
- bokonist 17y agoSteve Sailer has a reponse up on his blog: http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/11/gladwell-strikes-back.html http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/11/gladwell-strikes-back.htm... He has another explanation of his point here: http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/11/pinker-v-gladwell-on-nfl-quarterbacks.html http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/11/pinker-v-gladwell-on-nfl-... Overall, I think Sailer's critique is quite valid: What Berri is doing, in effect, by using his "per-play" measure is comparing quarterbacks taken at the top of the draft (most of whom get a lot of plays in the NFL) to those taken lower in the draft who turned out to be surprisingly better than expected, and thus got a lot of plays. He's essentially leaving out of his analysis all those lower drafted quarterbacks who turned out to be as mediocre as expected and thus didn't get many plays. In other words, his methodology is pre-rigged to produce the conclusion that Malcolm likes.
- llimllib 17y agoHypothesis: The reference to Sailer is mainly a hit, intended to link Pinker and Sailer, and drag Pinker down. Therefore, Sailer's response is largely irrelevant. (Agreed that Sailer's response is valid. Further support for my hypothesis: Gladwell spends the rest of the article denigrating blogs for their names and associations with Fantasy Football, as opposed to Science.)
- hegemonicon 17y agoMalcolm Gladwell has a rather long history of being corrected by experts. See here: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point... and here: http://www.dr5.org/judge-posner-on-blink-the-power-of-thinking-without-thinking/ http://www.dr5.org/judge-posner-on-blink-the-power-of-thinki... Full disclosure: I am a Gladwell fan, though I recognize that he is more storyteller than scientist.
- bruin4tw 17y agomalcolm owned that biatch.
- alexfarran 17y agoLost me at football.
- anateus 17y agoPinker's core point is that Gladwell is a shallow dilletante that writes well, but makes profound conclusions based on this basic dabbling. Gladwell does nothing but make one of Pinker's specific challenges appear much shakier (and yes, I'm going to be stereotypical here and guess that Pinker probably is much less comfortable with Football than Gladwell). If I hadn't ever heard of Pinker before, this would do something to my trust in his argument. However, knowing Pinker's track record and background, Gladwell's "rebuttal" seems a frail attempt that tries to hit at the one weak point he found. Really? Nothing more substantial to refute?
- joubert 17y agohttp://scienceblogs.com/pontiff/2009/11/igon_value_problems.php http://scienceblogs.com/pontiff/2009/11/igon_value_problems....