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A 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 v
by gruseom 17y ago
A 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.