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I 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 t
by biznerd 17y ago
I 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!).
- Confusion 17y agoWhen you fill gaps in your understanding with imagination, the result is that these 'relevant, insightful' ways are in fact made up. They are powerful in the way of teaching the public even more crap. One cannot possibly understand what eigenvalues are about if one doesn't know how to write the word. One may however think he understands what they are about, because one has filled in the gaps with imagination, and get it published, because reviewers think the author understands his stuff. In exactly the same way, all kinds of people, from complete crackpots to usually reasonable journalists, publish all kinds of crap because they think they understand quantum mechanics. QM, interestingly, relies heavily on those eigenvalues.
- delackner 17y agoHadn't heard this quote before but I do so love it now. I can just see a flow diagram of some complex concept inside a talk bubble next to one person, and a homer-simpson-esque caveman picture in a thought bubble next to the other.
- thaumaturgy 17y agoIf the term "igon value" had been replaced with "eigenvalue", would the usage or context have been incorrect? In other words, a mere misspelling -- while embarrassing -- doesn't demonstrate that someone has "little-to-no math background".
- trominos 17y agoPeople who know what eigenvalues are don't misspell "eigenvalue" as "igon value," ever. Malcolm Gladwell doesn't know what eigenvalues are. That's the only point, really, but it's a pretty big one -- Gladwell's stock in trade is the popularization of counterintuitive statistical studies and their conclusions, and if he's never learnt any linear algebra he's not in a good position to actually understand those studies.
- thaumaturgy 17y agoJust addressing your first sentence -- since I don't know Gladwell well enough personally to respond to the others -- it's not beyond the realm of imagination that he uses a ghost writer, or that someone transcribes for him, or even that he uses voice recognition software (as one of my clients does, which prompted my initial response). My point was whether the usage was incorrect, because it's not impossible to misspell it and still know the meaning of the term.
- jimmybot 17y agoCome on, Malcolm Gladwell isn't being ghostwritten. Anyone that good doesn't need a ghost writer, and if his ghost writer is that good, he's not going to be ghost writing instead of writing his own stuff and building his own name. Even if he were using a ghost writer, Gladwell didn't go back and read through?
- wisty 17y agoIt's may be more correct to say that Malcolm Gladwell does ghostwriting for the scientists he interviews.