This quote is the best explanation for Malcolm Gladwell:
“We’re obsessed with things like coherence, consistency, neatness of argument. Readers are indifferent to those things” - Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
61–70 of 71 posts
Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, Gladwell also wrote how “Korean culture” was the reason for the Asiana 214 plane crash. What I find interesting is that people who discount most of Gladwell’s theories, will oftentimes agree with others, as long as it confirms their own biases.
From what I heard of the account of that, he wasn't wrong. I mean Korean airlines specifically changed their policy after that crash to make it easier for co-pilots to correct their pilots. I stand corrected if this isn't the case.
While what you say may be true, it doesn’t prove Korean culture was the primary cause of the crash.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#63The funny thing is that Guardian got the central idea totally wrong: "the related idea of "deliberate practice" — or pushing your skills over long hours "
No, deliberate practice is not just long hours practice. Deliberate practice is deliberately finding your weakness and practice to fix it, to improve it then move on. Merely more practice will not improve one's skill much after a certain threshold. What matters is not how long or how many times did you do a certain thing but how often did you do it correctly and what you learned from the experience.
Thus comes the second important part of effective training: a great teacher.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I took away from that chapter was two things. First was that Asian children, at least those who speak languages that function this way, grok the concept of addition faster than their Western counterparts because the counting systems are extremely regular, so they pick up on the patterns easier because 11 isn't the arbitrary "eleven" instead it's simply "ten one". Second was success in math is in part a function…
Implicit in the premise of the chapter is that categories such as "Asian" and attributes like "better at math" exist objectively. Gladwell never defines Asian, instead shifting between definitions that rely on nationality (cherrypicked test scores from a number of well-off Northeast Asian countries), language (where he brings up the Chinese counting system used only in some but not all Asian Languages), and ethnicity…
Well it's a pop-sci book that reads as such. I don't take it to be rigorous, I take it with a "I guess I could see how those dots might connect" food for thought type way.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Implicit in the premise of the chapter is that categories such as "Asian" and attributes like "better at math" exist objectively. Gladwell never defines Asian, instead shifting between definitions that rely on nationality (cherrypicked test scores from a number of well-off Northeast Asian countries), language (where he brings up the Chinese counting system used only in some but not all Asian Languages), and ethnicity…
Well it's a pop-sci book that reads as such. I don't take it to be rigorous, I take it with a "I guess I could see how those dots might connect" food for thought type way.
Popularizing a bunch of disingenuous arguments and presenting it as science isn't excusable no matter the genre.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're competing in an area where other competitors spend 10k hours before they compete, you better practice. We didn't really need a study to tell us that, but people feel it adds something to say that science has "proved it". That's why if you point out the study was BS, it doesn't matter, because it was just a supporting detail for the point they wanted to make anyway. Practice.
Not quite to disagree with your main point: > because it was just a supporting detail for the point they wanted to make anyway. The people who make arguments whose evidence is just a supporting detail for the point they wanted to make anyway are common--some are some of my friends, family and coworkers, but I take what they say a lot less seriously than I do people who have high standards for evidence. >We didn't rea…
Most of the best advice is simply telling people what is already obvious to everyone but them. There's not a lot of evidence needed, and adding more won't help if the person isn't ready to hear it. In "reasons why people misallocate practice time", akrasia ranks above the lack of research studies by about a mile.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#67Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well it's a pop-sci book that reads as such. I don't take it to be rigorous, I take it with a "I guess I could see how those dots might connect" food for thought type way.
Popularizing a bunch of disingenuous arguments and presenting it as science isn't excusable no matter the genre.
I don't find the arguments themselves entirely disingenuous.
Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of this is unsurprising, given Gladwell's process: 1. Take research findings in psychology, sociology, etc., all fields which are having big replication problems. 2. Pick out findings that are surprising enough to write a pop-science book about. These are less likely to be true -- that's why they're surprising. 3. Oversimplify for popular consumption, sound very confident, and omit things that don't fit the story…
I think I read somewhere that he took speaking fees from tobacco and amphetamine companies and wrote positively about them.
Shaming someone for taking speaking fees from Philip Morris, I can see a moral problem.
But calling a pharmaceutical company an "amphetamine company" seems a bit obtuse. For one, amphetamines are commonly prescribed by doctors and are used to successfully treat a lot of serious problems with patients. Secondly, those companies makes lots of other drugs too.
But I guess it doesn't sound as bad if you say he accepted money from "insulin companies".
Re: Malcolm Gladwell's famous 10k hour rule isn't holding up in new research
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
On how to practice, I read once about the difference in the ways good amateur pianists practice and how top professionals typically practice. The amateurs will practice all their scales and pieces from start to finish by rote every day. The Pros identify the specific scales and short sections of pieces they hit problems with, and focus almost all their practice on those tricky parts. As a result they get as much as 1…
I have to wonder if the difference is because the latter is the better practice, or because they have already done the basic practice and don't need to do it anymore. In other words, is it necessary to go through the rote work of practicing basics before becoming a pro? I would guess the answer is yes. It would be far more telling to track many people, from beginner through their musical (in this case) careers, and d…
Ya, it seems like practicing the difficult parts would just be a natural progression for anyone who is good enough that the easier parts are simple to them.