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Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

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Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#51

Post by tezka »

downandout wrote: post #24

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 point…

sorry to say this, but this is exactly why MG is dangerous for the society. Because people start perpetuating myths and fictions passed to them in entertaining tone as facts. They start narrating them to kids and gradually turn them into common wisdom. To whoever reads this shit as entertainment. Please don't. Go watch a movie, listen to standup, watch porn, whatever else makes you feel less board. Pop science is perhaps even more important than scientific journals and shouldn't be crapped on the way MG does. I just can't fathom why people are such entertainment junkies anyways.

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#52

Post by crntaylor »

mtts wrote: post #48
crntaylor wrote: post #21

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 littl…

Jared Diamond counter-intuitive? I'm with you on the other three but Guns Germs & Steel always struck me as very "D'uh".

One of his ideas is that the development of agriculture was "the worst mistake in the history of the human race"[0] contra the popular belief that agriculture improved food yields and freed people up to spend time developing science, technology and art -- and could therefore be considered one of the greatest achievements in the history of the human race.

I'm not saying that his argument is wrong, but it definitely runs against the prevailing wisdom. Similarly "Collapse" (the idea that the success or failure of societies is predictable) and "Guns, Germs and Steel" (the advantages of old-world people over new-world people in the 1500s were due to the influence of geography and climate, not inherent superiorities).

Maybe those things are obvious to you, but I don't think they're obvious to most people.

[0] http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in...

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#53

Post by downandout »

antimagic wrote: post #45
downandout wrote: post #24

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 point…

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…

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.

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#54

Post by rmrfrmrf »

downandout wrote: post #24

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 point…

Here's an idea: instead of lazily relying on people to come up with clever ways to say things for you, come up with your own ways of viewing the world. People who rely on baseless aphorisms to make themselves seem more interesting belong in the same circle of Hell as those who name-drop. The example that the author uses, "the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty," isn't even useful or palatable.

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#55

Post by visakanv »

bborud wrote: post #42

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…

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.

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#56

Post by jrs99 »

downandout wrote: post #24

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 point…

We intuitively know that if the print is hard to read that more people will be successful at solving the problem?

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#57

Post by mmcnickle »

digitalengineer wrote: post #39
willvarfar wrote: post #15

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!

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)

He was sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for writing in a newspaper column that they promoted "bogus treatments".

Edit: Too late. I'd second the book recommendations though, they're excellent.

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#58

Post by wiml »

GeorgeOrr wrote: post #3
bobbles wrote: post #2

"I haven't read the book" But hey lets get some pageviews anyway right?

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

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.

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#59

Post by valleyer »

someperson wrote: post #35
crntaylor wrote: post #21

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 littl…

This might also apply to NPR Planet Money. Seems to plague the softer/human sciences like economics, psychology and anthropology more than physics/chemistry/maths (though these fields have there own poor journalism)

> This might also apply to NPR Planet Money

You think so? Planet Money routinely brings on actual economists to explain things in plain language. And when they don't, they're just describing not-very-technical but interesting things (e.g., how the music industry works, what those complex securities that ruined the economy were, etc.). They don't often (ever, that I can recall) come up with new phenomena.

Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?

#60

Post by georgemcbay »

downandout wrote: post #46
crntaylor wrote: post #21

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 littl…

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. IMO, this is what appeals to many about HN....the desire to find share-worthy things that will help cement their image as the smart person within their social group. Nothing wrong with it, just an (unscientific) observation.

"IMO, this is what appeals to many about HN....the desire to find share-worthy things that will help cement their image as the smart person within their social group."

Don't forget those of us who come to HN primarily to post comments about why the linked article is obviously stupid and wrong, or is right but just saying things that we've been aware of for a while now.

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