Why Malcolm Gladwell Matters and Why That's Unfortunate
blog.chabris.com
blog.chabris.com
The rhetoric of Malcolm Gladwell's work represents that of the "new historicism" in literary studies, which emerged in the 80s.
There is a common style to these works:
-- They start with a startling and interesting anecdote, and, basically, tell a story.
-- They leverage finding from various articles.
-- They use a lot of argumentative ju-jitsu. For example, when the author is going to basically attempt a kind of whopper, they will admit that there are some failing to the argument. The rhetorical tic for Greenblatt is to write: "To be sure . . ." to make the reader feel that, yes, there are other opinions, but I'm kind of right. Then they go barreling ahead with a highly contentious argument.
For Greenblatt and the literary historians who write about the past: Their claims are rarely falsifiable. Sometimes other scholars will say that the new historicists are "wrong," but it is not uncommon for the critics' basis for their own claims to be equally frail.
If you asked Greenblatt, he might not claim that what is describing is "true," but, rather, "good to think with." For the past, maybe that's reasonable.
But:
Gladwell is almost always talking about the present, and making claims that should be testable with a robust experiment. Very frequently, he will cite incredibly thin research (as Chris Chabris notes).
I think this is the essential problem:
Gladwell's style is OK if you can't really test the hypothesis (new historicism). But if you're talking about the here-and-now, you have to answer to a higher standard of argumentation.
Ah! Gleichschaltung.
Gladwell gets rich with his writing, so good for him. But his dubious counterintuitive "insights" are really close to snake oil in some cases.
That said, maybe there's money in writing books to take down Gladwell.
I'm good with that.
He, like many writers, has a very clear agenda and influencing things like workplace hiring practices or public policy is EXACTLY what he's aiming to do. No doubt, he's sincere in thinking what he's ultimately doing is good, but it's very often insincere in picking or even manipulating data to fits his beliefs rather than letting the evidence speak for itself.
I have respect for him as a writer, I have very little respect for him as a truth teller.
The problem is, the more popular the pseudoscience is, the more likely it is that you'll run into it.
The reason I floated the idea of writing Gladwell refuting books is that there's a lot more notoriety to be gained when going after someone who is popular. And it would be somewhat poetic (albeit a bit cynical) to profit by calling out a guy who is distorting science for personal profit.
Maybe someone could name this book, "Glad to be Wrong" or "The Glad Well of Pseudoscience". To be fair, it's not like his books are totally wrongheaded, but they're enough so that people who know better should speak up.
Comparing it to Oprah and The Secret hype (as some other commenters did) which is snake oil in the purest form is not fair imo.
I've read and enjoyed Mr. Gladwell's books, and may even prefer his essay writing[1].
The guy isn't writing a dissertation; this is lightweight pop-science from a fairly good writer and presenter, with a knack for inductive reasoning (albeit sometimes controversial). The fact that the masses misjudge the scientific efficacy of his arguments is not a real issue. It's not like the guy is selling hate-speech. He should be WAY down the list of authors requiring a scientific debunking.
Gladwell's angle is that he's done the heavy lifting and read those dissertations for you, in the end democratizing these counterintuitive tidbits of intellectual shortcuts that will allow everyone to understand the world better. His audience listens to him because there is a belief that he is simplifying hard material.
Only he isn't. The conclusions he draws seldom have any legitimate supports, though Gladwell writes as if he does. Indeed, I have to disagree that he has any knack for inductive reasoning -- his real knack is to identify those conclusions that will get him PR, which in turn will make him rich and important.
The fact that the masses misjudge the scientific efficacy of his arguments is not a real issue
This is unfair to every reader of Gladwell. Unfair to everyone who quoted his various assertions in blog posts or infographic form. Because they did it based on the idea that there is a reasonable probability that his claims are valid. But they aren't. They might be randomly generated with as much legitimacy.
Gladwell is a fantastic writer, but scientifically he operates with the same behavior of a million snake oil salesman.
I also like to steer clear of writing about people whom I do not personally like. My rule is that if I interview someone, they should never read what I have to say about them and regret having given me the interview.[1]
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/books/review/malcolm-gladw...
The techniques are amazingly well executed, even if (or especially because) the practitioners are sociopaths. That doesn't mean they are always wrong or offering bad analysis, but it does mean that meme-optimization (certainty, in-group/out-group creation, etc.) will trump the truth.
For more detailed information, you can search out blog posts by others (or by him!) where it's blatantly obvious he spammed Amazon, blogs, and other services with MTurk-like workers to promote his brand.
Not to mention cheating the push-hands tournament (if in spirit and not law necessarily), etc.
You mean like politics? sports? Hollywood? Yes, maybe Gladwell's writings don't pass muster for publication into an academic journal. But in a world obsessed with 30-second clips, I'm sure glad he's peddling his "gateway drugs". Maybe he's not good with qualifiers, but at least he's working hard to research complex issues and, for goodness sake, even uses references! In light of the usual quality of information that the public is exposed to these days, intellectuals telling Gladwell to shut up is an incredibly self-defeating attitude.
I'd say no reference it pretty much better than distorting the overall state of research. (Edit: Also Gladwell isn't researching at all, he's reading research and presenting it, just FYI).
Sure, everyday debate and everyday judgement involves continuously formulating and using unproven, unscientific beliefs. But at least we should be aware when someone is doing that. Arbitrary judgement that just presents itself as arbitrary judgement, that you have strong to examine yourself, it better than dubious positions that present themselves as Proven By Science.
In this case, your friendly PHB looks at Gladwell or other pop sci author, decides its true (a falsehood), and then makes policy based on the illusion of correctness. Now you, in your quest for truth, have to defeat Gladwell as well as spread truth. See how it gets worse than your PHB just derping it up on his own?
On the other hand Oprah with her promotion of The Secret which is potentially very harmful if you start applying things it advocates or Kiyosaki with his books/mlm promotion are better candidates to put into scam category.
After reading Outliers at least I have a theory of why I was a crappy hockey player with my October birthday.
Gladwell is indeed on record saying that he doesn't write to be true in the scholarly sense, but to be thought-provoking. He has said in an interview that he writes to try out ideas.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html
"Q: Do you worry that you extrapolate too much from too little?
"A: No. It's better to err on the side of over-extrapolation. These books are playful in the sense that they regard ideas as things to experiment with. 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. You have to be willing to put pressure on theories, to push the envelope. That's the fun part, the exciting part. If you are writing an intellectual adventure story, why play it safe? I'm not out to convert people. I want to inspire and provoke them."
And Gladwell is good, while trying out ideas, at crediting his sources. Any reader of a Malcolm Gladwell book (as I know, from being a reader of the book Outliers) can check the sources, and decide from there what other sources to check and what other ideas to play with. Gladwell doesn't purport to write textbooks, but I give him a lot of credit for finding interesting scholarly sources that haven't had enough attention in the popular literature. He is equaled by very few authors as a story-teller who can tie ideas together in a thought-provoking assembly. And in particular, I recommend Gladwell's "Disclosure Statement," an essay about conflicts of interest for professional writers,
http://gladwell.com/disclosure-statement/
which I learned about from another HN submission. Gladwell has strong integrity of a kind, but it is not the integrity of a scholar of psychology like Christopher Chabris.
Regarding the new book under review, I am particularly worried about claims that dyslexia is any kind of advantage for anything. Many cases of dyslexia are the woeful result of poor practices in teaching reading,
http://learninfreedom.org/readseri.html
http://learninfreedom.org/readbook.html
and it would be very regrettable to drop efforts to improve initial reading instruction on the flawed theory that dyslexia provides advantages to young learners. Gladwell says he is "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," and definitely we should all think each time we read anything.
Yes, I am aware of Gladwell using this caveat.
The thing is, if you want to make people think you can:
* Present your argument from first principles, making it clear the backing comes ultimately from your deductions not scientific research.
* Present a full, nuance pictures of the state of present day research.
But it's difficult to argue that just the patina of scientific authority engages people's critical analysis reflex rather than engaging people's accepting-authority reflex. And that's with all your and Gladwell's caveats.
I mean, people like yourself who I assume know the literature aren't going to be swayed too much by the "great story telling" but conversely, who are swayed by story telling aren't that likely to read the caveats.
>>> "Gladwell has strong integrity of a kind, but it is not the integrity of a scholar of psychology like Christopher Chabris."
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. Groucho
Edit: Just consider, many people will listen to an Obama speech about ending surveillance in 2007 and then look at Obama's behavior now and say "he lied". I'd like to think that I can parse out caveat in 2007-Obama which open up the door for 2013-Obama. But I don't actually think that means 2007-Obama didn't effectively lie. It means Obama is smart and talks to people "on different levels" and perhaps has "strong integrity of a kind" but in our multiply weasel-wordy-world, the question is "what kind?" right?
I have a feeling that he had some good ideas that he put forth in his first few books; now he's just trying to use his name to sell more books. Which is not something that he denies. So fucking smart...Imagine that there was no law for punishing stealing. You catch a thief, and he admits immediately that he was stealing. Then what do you do?
Separate issue and point is that a sure way to make a name for yourself (I mean he may be well know in his circles or your circles but I've never ever heard of him) is to take on someone of much greater fame.
For example, let me give you the path here:
I participate in HN
"tokenadult" is well respected on HN.
I respect what "tokenadult" says. So do others his comment is at the top.
tokenadult called Chris Chabris "a scholar of psychology"
I decided to do some more checking on Chris Chabris and found out he graduated from and also did some teaching at Harvard.
I wouldn't know any of this if Chris hadn't written the critique of Malcolm Gladwell. Which caught my eye because it was about Gladwell
Disclosure: I've dealt with Malcolm Gladwell in business. [1]
[1] Points to anyone who can see if this is really a disclosure or actually presented for another purpose.
Malcolm Gladwell often writes lies in his nonfiction books. I have found myself personally deceived by some of his lies. For instance, on page 39 of Outliers, he writes:
The striking thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals”, musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. Nor could they find any “grinds”, people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks.
The first time I read this passage, I thought it was one of the most extraordinary pieces of information I'd ever encountered. It meant that practice almost completely determines ability! I mostly believed that for more than 4 years. (And so did the rest of the world -- that's the core of the 10000 hours meme.)
It turns out that the passage is completely false. Ericsson's study did not actually say anything about individual violinists at all -- it only ever reported average statistics of groups of violinists.
Other studies of the relationship between total practice time and ability have found that different people may reach a given level of ability with enormously different practice totals. For instance a study of chess players found that the average amount of practice time needed to reach the Master level is ~11000 hours -- but the standard deviation of the distribution is more than 5000 hours. One person only took 3000 hours to reach Master level. Another took 23000 hours. [1]
Calling this kind of deception "being playful with ideas" is absurd.
[1] Note: I have not read the study in question. My info comes secondhand, from http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and-... and http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/media/books/H....
I certainly wouldn't call that normal. Noone lives at those altitudes.
I wish K. Anders Ericsson put as many of his papers up on the Web in freely downloadable form as Jelte Wicherts or Eric Turkheimer or other psychology researchers do, but at least his faculty webpages provide a lot of references to his studies of the acquisition of expert performance.
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.hp.html
As a research program continues, reasonable minds can differ about how much is well demonstrated and how much still needs more research to become a confirmed finding, but I consistently find Ericsson's papers interesting, and have enjoyed reading and thinking about them since long before the first time Malcolm Gladwell wrote about Ericsson's research. Google Scholar notes some of his most-cited papers,
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Ym0clGUAAAAJ&hl=en
and there is a whole book, The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance about that line of research that is well worth a read.
http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/psychology/cog...
Much of his previous writing and public speaking are, at least, literate and entertaining. Listen to the whole TED talk, I dare you! I could not finish. The treacle was too thick, the grinding of clashing unapt analogies too loud.
It may be easy and popular to slag Gladwell, but man he set himself up for it this time.