
Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell? - r0h1n
http://ksj.mit.edu/tracker/2013/10/should-we-stop-believing-malcolm-gladwel
======
crntaylor
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...

~~~
svantana
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.

~~~
visakanv
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.

------
ddellacosta
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
Looks quite plausible:
[http://web.med.harvard.edu/healthcaucus/bg_rensberger.html](http://web.med.harvard.edu/healthcaucus/bg_rensberger.html)

------
natural219
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
I guess after the magic 10,000 hours of reading you became an expert on
reading.

~~~
onebaddude
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.

~~~
vertr07
They are "mocking" Gladwell for presenting anecdotes as science, not for
simplification.

------
auctiontheory
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
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
I don't hear senior people in all sorts of professions referencing CSI the way
I hear them referencing Malcolm Gladwell.

~~~
ctdonath
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.

------
pg
"I haven't read the book"

That could be a useful prelude to writing about it.

~~~
unclebucknasty
The article is more about Gladwell than about his latest book.

~~~
jamesrom
No, the article is clearly about Gladwell's work.

~~~
unclebucknasty
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.

------
cormullion
Another review (of the book) at

[http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/malcolm-gladwell-
backlas...](http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/malcolm-gladwell-backlash-
pseudo-profundity)

"Gladwell is the non-fiction equivalent of Dan Brown."

~~~
Brakenshire
> 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.

------
noonespecial
Gladwell does the literary equivalent of this:

[http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Barack-
Obama-C...](http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Barack-Obama-
Caricature-barack-obama-749115_348_450.jpg)

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
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
> 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
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-a...](http://askakorean.blogspot.no/2013/07/culturalism-gladwell-and-
airplane.html)

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))

------
kiba
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.

~~~
sn41
The problem with popular science books is that they are written by journalists
untrained in science. It should be scientists who write popular works. There
are several scientists who have written great works which are neither
difficult, nor dumbed down - for example, Steinhaus' "Mathematical Snapshots",
Einstein and Infeld's "The Evolution of Physics", Schrodinger's "What is
life?" and even delightful works such as Faraday's "Chemical history of a
candle".

With the hypercompetitiveness of modern scientific careers, scientists who
take time off to write popular expositions are looked down upon. The problem
is not Malcolm Gladwell, the problem is the insularity of modern scientists.

~~~
tempestn
I've heard good things about Hawking's books as well, although haven't read
any yet.

~~~
nzp
Don't waste your time. His books are just horribly misleading. After reading
them you won't come out with any better knowledge about what is actually going
on, in fact you might even be worse off. He throws around lots of technical
jargon without any attempt to actually explain (relying instead on layman
reader's wrong intuitions) what those words mean in the context of theoretical
physics and you can really see just how hard he tries to make it all
mysterious to impress the "common man" and give him enough illusion of
understanding so he doesn't stop reading. But hey, that sells books! Although
he's not the only scientist who does this, he's become in my mind a prototype
for such deceitful behavior.

Feynman's approach was as good as it gets when it comes to popularizing
physics, so your best bet are his popular books. And if you have some working
calculus knowledge you should just read his Lectures on Physics to get to
understand pretty much all of physics up to and not including QFT and General
Relativity.

------
morgante
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.

------
JonnieCache
Between this and yesterday's Gladwell-doubting article it seems Malcolm has
reached a tipping point of his very own.

------
mpweiher
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.

------
willvarfar
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
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
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
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...](http://esciencenews.com/sources/the.guardian.science/2010/04/15/simon.singh.beware.spinal.trap)

------
foobarbazqux
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
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
> 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.

------
ctdonath
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

~~~
DanBC
> 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-
thing...](http://www.social-consciousness.com/2013/10/ten-simple-things-you-
can-do-today-that-will-make-you-happier-backed-by-science.html))

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-
depressi...](http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004366/exercise-for-depression)

> 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.

~~~
ctdonath
Relevant quote from the current HN thread _History Must Be Curved_ :

" _Science doesn’t follow a mythic positivist ideal but the plural scientific
methods described by Feyerabend: a mixture of empiricism, flights of fancy,
intuition, aesthetics, doggedness, and jealousy. Scientific theories are
underdetermined. Any finite set of facts can support multiple theories, and
for a long time the available facts were equally explained by geostationary or
geomobile models._ "

~~~
DanBC
But these books do not present the geostationary and geomobile models, and
explain the differences and how the data fits.

They put out a book "GEOSTATIONARY: The Blah of blah blah", and they talk
about a tiny subset of the supporting evidence. They won't mention geomobile,
or if they do they won't accept that facts at the time are explained equally
by both but to destroy geomobile and the gullible saps who believe it.

Your quote argues persuasively _against_ the books of Gladwell, which are
semi-truthy, using Science to sound authoritative and accurate but without
accepting any of the fluidity of actual science.

------
hingisundhorsa
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
> 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
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
> 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).

------
bborud
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
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.

------
jetru
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
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
is this 'Winner' and 'Loser' ?

------
logicallee
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.

------
bobbles
"I haven't read the book"

But hey lets get some pageviews anyway right?

~~~
GeorgeOrr
Did he at least see the cover, in order to judge it?

~~~
wiml
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
Blink _did_ qualify this with "sometimes." Your second sentence doesn't
follow.

------
6ren
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
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)

------
tokenadult
"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
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.

------
kareemm
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.

------
golergka
I think that it's far more universal problem:

[http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_fina...](http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/Weird_People_BBS_final02.pdf)

------
linux_devil
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
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/...](http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-
Kahneman/dp/0374533555)

------
pjdorrell
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.

------
krmmalik
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.

------
drblast
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."

------
aschearer
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.

------
kamakazizuru
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).

------
dcre
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-...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114127/science-not-enemy-
humanities)

------
codex
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/young...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/youngest-
kid-smartest-kid.html)

------
arshia
Great piece by Chris Chabris in Slate
[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/10/malcolm_gladwell_critique_david_and_goliath_misrepresents_the_science.html)
\- "I thought he was sincerely misunderstanding the science, but he knows
exactly what he is doing."

------
lutusp
> Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

As long as people think believing stands higher than understanding, people
like Gladwell will find a wide audience.

------
tnorris
Gladwell responds:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/10/malcolm_gladwell_s_david_and_goliath_he_explains_why_christopher_chabris.html)

------
mattmanser
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)

------
avenger123
"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.

------
lotsofcows
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.

------
tommorris
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.

------
alexdowad
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
Rule of thumb: any headline which asks a yes/no question has an answer of
"no".

------
kabisote
_> 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?

------
eric_the_read
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?

------
gmisra
This entire problem would go away if Gladwell's writings were classified as
speculative fiction instead of non-fiction.

------
YZF
"I haven't read the book;" \- I think we can stop reading the book review
right about there.

------
spinlock
Should we stop believing book reviewers who haven't read the book?

------
thewarrior
If not people like Gladwell then what should we be really reading ?

------
jrockway
It takes 10,000 hours of practice to disbelieve Malcolm Gladwell.

------
siliconviking
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.

------
Anon84
When did we start?

------
seehafer
TL;DR Yes.

------
downandout
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.

~~~
antimagic
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
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.

~~~
antimagic
"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."

No, it is _not_ a safe assumption. It remains to be proven, and that's
assuming you can even come up with a decent objective definition of
"ambition". Your post-hoc reasoning is exactly the type of reasoning that is
taken to task in the article -

Gladwell: Making a task harder makes people perform better.

Academia: No, actually, when tested with a higher-powered study, this effect
disappeared.

You: (with no evidence, and only _after_ the release of the Canadian study
refuting Gladwell) Oh, but the result only applies to _ambitious_ people.

That argument is weak - it's fitting the facts to the hypothesis, and not the
other way round. With the available data, the only thing you can really say is
that perhaps a study needs to be done to better understand the why the
Princeton study and the Canadian study gave different results (statistical
fluke? different ambition? cultural bias?)

~~~
downandout
So you're saying, then, that there are no differences between those that
choose to attend a public college and those that attend an elite university?
That those two groups of people wouldn't perform differently in studies
focused on performance? That is nonsense.

~~~
Volpe
He isn't saying that at all. I think his main point is you are talking crap
(though he articulated it much better than I have).

And Princeton (in undergrad) isn't "intellectually" elite, it is financially
elite. I don't think you can derive anything about student "ambitiousness"
just from how wealthy they are, and wealth is pretty much the only thing that
separates Princeton undergrad student from a public college student.

Caveat: I'm assuming the study was done on undergrads, postgrad princeton is
different beast.

~~~
downandout
He _is_ saying that. Further, it doesn't appear that we're talking about the
same Princeton. From [http://abt.cm/GOXrfh](http://abt.cm/GOXrfh) :

 _" Princeton University is one of the most selective colleges in the
country.....Most students who got into Princeton had GPAs close to a 4.0, SAT
scores (CR+M+W) above 2100, and ACT composite scores above 30......many
students with a 4.0 GPA and extremely high standardized test scores get
rejected from Princeton. For this reason, even strong students should consider
Princeton a reach school."_

The results of the two studies at issue here can be swayed dramatically by the
type of students participating, and each study in fact looked at two
dramatically different groups of students - one matching the criteria above
and one being a public college in Canada. Yet both of you have taken the
position that the results of one cancels out the results of the other. You
are, quite simply, wrong.

~~~
Volpe
I think you need to learn more about the correlation between educational
outcomes and socio-economic status (Hint: There is an extremely strong one).

Also, GPAs, SATs, and ACT composites don't measure ambition. So... I'm trying
to work out what your point was...

40 people isn't a 'study' it's an anecdote.

What I am saying, is there is not enough information to draw a meaningful
conclusion, which I believe the GP is also saying... You can say we are
'wrong' as much as possible, but that's just rhetoric.

