

Malcolm Gladwell's response to Steven Pinker's review of his new book - theycallmemorty
http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2009/11/pinker-on-what-the-dog-saw.html

======
evgen
As 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-...](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-200912))
for anyone in search of a quick laugh.

~~~
gruseom
Wow. 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
I'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
If 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
>>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
There aren't entire chapters. It appears in a quote by a mathematician.
Gladwell isn't trying to explain mathematics poorly, he's transcribing poorly.

------
paulgb
Pinker's review:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html>

------
bokonist
Steve Sailer has a reponse up on his blog:
[http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/11/gladwell-strikes-
back.htm...](http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/11/gladwell-strikes-back.html)

He has another explanation of his point here:
[http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/11/pinker-v-gladwell-on-
nfl-...](http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/11/pinker-v-gladwell-on-nfl-
quarterbacks.html)

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
Hypothesis: 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.)

------
bh23ha
This 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.

~~~
run4yourlives
The 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
When 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.

------
biznerd
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?

~~~
thaumaturgy
If 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
People 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
Just 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
Come 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
It's may be more correct to say that Malcolm Gladwell does ghostwriting for
the scientists he interviews.

------
gruseom
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_
The 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.

------
anateus
Pinker'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?

------
hegemonicon
Malcolm Gladwell has a rather long history of being corrected by experts. See
here: [http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-
point...](http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-
toast.html) and here: [http://www.dr5.org/judge-posner-on-blink-the-power-of-
thinki...](http://www.dr5.org/judge-posner-on-blink-the-power-of-thinking-
without-thinking/)

Full disclosure: I am a Gladwell fan, though I recognize that he is more
storyteller than scientist.

------
nixme
What 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.

~~~
zach
Sailer'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_...](http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/12/the_lunatic_fri.html)

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
Sailer'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.

------
tokenadult
This 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
Unfortunately 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
Actually 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.

------
xiaoma
Gladwell 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
No, 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
In 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
Mmm, 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/>).

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.

------
kul
I was left feeling completely dissatisfied with this response. It came across
as childish.

------
joubert
[http://scienceblogs.com/pontiff/2009/11/igon_value_problems....](http://scienceblogs.com/pontiff/2009/11/igon_value_problems.php)

------
bruin4tw
malcolm owned that biatch.

------
alexfarran
Lost me at football.

------
omouse
So two soft scientists are fighting? Who cares?

~~~
epi0Bauqu
Pinker is not a soft scientist.

~~~
omouse
Oh? What is he then? (I read evolutionary psychologist off his wikipedia bio)

~~~
ramanujan
Read his papers from the 80s -- they are highly technical linguistics
manuscripts. Pinker knows Unix and uses emacs. Yes, really.

~~~
kwantam
I took a class from him at MIT (9.00). He is a very, very smart person.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
I took that too, which is also how I knew :)

------
pmichaud
I didn't like the implied ad hominems much 8/ Respect for Gladwell--;

~~~
pmichaud
Am 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?

