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Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

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Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#21

Post by JimmyL »

For this point:

A typical 16-hour day...nowhere for the pilot to rest. He or she will be sitting near a gate, in uniform...trying to shut out the noise of thousands of passengers walking by and hundreds of public address announcements.

It seems like a quick-and-easy solution would be to have the Pilots' union demand access to the airline's network lounges (or better yet, make it an FAA requirement so that they can get into off-brand lounges at smaller airports) in their next collective agreement. Union members would commit to not taking advantage of the free food or the computer terminals, and the airlines would in exchange let them hang out there as it's quieter and gives them somewhere to get a bit restful before their next leg.

And if the airlines don't want to fill up their own lounges with free staff (as opposed to passengers), contract out the problem - give the pilots PriorityPass memberships, so they'd be going into lounges that aren't their own, and that are explicitly OK with people paying to get in.

Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#22

Post by gwern »

JimmyL wrote: post #20
defen wrote: post #12

Not having read Outliers, I can't really comment on the argument presented here. However, I found it rather... odd?... that he chose Martha's Vinyard as his example destination for a private pilot, who would need to "check the weather, ..., and decide whether the risks are a reasonable match for his or her skills and equipment", considering that there was a very famous plane crash under similar circumstances, of whic…

I saw that, and was 50-50 if he was referencing JFK Jr. explicitly. On one hand, Greenspun is a pretty noted Libertarian and not a fan of the Kennedys. On the other, he often references flying to Martha's Vineyard for day trips in his other writings about aviation, and it seems like a pretty sensible place to fly to if you're into civil aviation and looking for a day flight somewhere from Boston (where I believe he's…

I'd agree; from reading his blog for a long time, he is in fact based out of Boston, spends a lot of time engaged in small-scale civil aviation, and does visit Martha's Vineyard more frequently than your average bear. (Check out http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/08/15/complete-marth... ).

Nothing says it can't be both - it's a location that naturally comes to his mind, his point is valid (weather conditions can be dangerous there, Kennedys aside), and it happens to be a dig at some people he hates.

Packing that much into a short phrase is called good polemic writing, people.

Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#23

Post by tokenadult »

larsberg wrote: post #17

Gladwell's books are not scholarly research. They're more like hipster coffee shop conversations, and should be taken with a healthy dose of rigorous skepticism, even though they are usually quite enjoyable.

Gladwell's books are not scholarly research. They're more like hipster coffee shop conversations, and should be taken with a healthy dose of rigorous skepticism, even though they are usually quite enjoyable.

I think Gladwell would largely agree with this description of his writings, or at least with the part that says that his writings should be approached skeptically and that they don't purport to be scholarly. From the article "Malcolm Gladwell's Method" in the Wall Street Journal on November 15, 2008,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122671211614230261.html?mod=...

an interview by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg:

"[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."

Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#24

Post by aaronsw »

JimmyL wrote: post #20
defen wrote: post #12

Not having read Outliers, I can't really comment on the argument presented here. However, I found it rather... odd?... that he chose Martha's Vinyard as his example destination for a private pilot, who would need to "check the weather, ..., and decide whether the risks are a reasonable match for his or her skills and equipment", considering that there was a very famous plane crash under similar circumstances, of whic…

I saw that, and was 50-50 if he was referencing JFK Jr. explicitly. On one hand, Greenspun is a pretty noted Libertarian and not a fan of the Kennedys. On the other, he often references flying to Martha's Vineyard for day trips in his other writings about aviation, and it seems like a pretty sensible place to fly to if you're into civil aviation and looking for a day flight somewhere from Boston (where I believe he's…

I'm friends with Philip and I doubt he'd consider himself a libertarian. He's more of a _Slate_-style counterintuitivist, although he'd probably object to any kind of political label.

Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#25

Post by yters »

jrockway wrote: post #7
mechanical_fish wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, even knowing nothing about the subject at hand this argument looked a wee bit exaggerated. If the situation were truly so astonishingly extreme, wouldn't the USA become a major net exporter of airline-pilot talent? Come to think of it, is the USA a major net exporter of airline-pilot talent? And if not, why not? Is the fix in, as it is with doctors and lawyers? (Getting a medical degree is one thing, moving to t…

Come to think of it, is the USA a major net exporter of airline-pilot talent? Dunno, but I have a hunch the answer is yes. (Not "net", but we probably do export.) I was very surprised when I was flying from Hong Kong to Shanghai on Dragonair a few months ago; both the captain and first officer were white guys with American accents. Not what I expected from an airline that only flies from mainland China to Hong Kong.…

Alot of them probably come from the Air Force, and pilots in the Air Force basically just fly all the time.

Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#26

Post by jseliger »

Elepsis wrote: post #8

I just read Outliers yesterday, conveniently enough, so the chapter is fresh on my mind. While Greenspun certainly refutes a thesis quite effectively, I don't think it's actually the thesis of the chapter he's discussing. First of all, Gladwell does not at any point claim that American or Canadian pilots are "the best" due to the power distance index--in fact, he doesn't claim that at all. If you look at the book, th…

I was just going to post something to this effect: Greenspun is busily refuting a claim that Gladwell never makes, which is that American pilots are somehow better, or that they're better because they have more experience. In fact, IIRC, Gladwell takes pains to point out that some of the South Korea crashes had very senior pilots flying.

Gladwell's larger point is that a) modern crashes are composed of a large number of crashes on planes and that b) cultural inhibition of direct communication can contribute to crashes to the extent that a more junior position feels unable to speak directly to the pilot.

I have my reservations about Gladwell, as described here: http://jseliger.com/2009/07/28/outliers-and-blink , but the pilot chapter isn't among his weaker so far as I can tell.

Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#27

Post by jseliger »

Elepsis wrote: post #8

I just read Outliers yesterday, conveniently enough, so the chapter is fresh on my mind. While Greenspun certainly refutes a thesis quite effectively, I don't think it's actually the thesis of the chapter he's discussing. First of all, Gladwell does not at any point claim that American or Canadian pilots are "the best" due to the power distance index--in fact, he doesn't claim that at all. If you look at the book, th…

I was just going to post something to this effect: Greenspun is busily refuting a claim that Gladwell never makes, which is that American pilots are somehow better, or that they're better because they have more experience. In fact, IIRC, Gladwell takes pains to point out that some of the South Korea crashes had very senior pilots flying.

Gladwell's larger point is that a) modern crashes are composed of a large number of crashes on planes and that b) cultural inhibition of direct communication can contribute to crashes to the extent that a more junior position feels unable to speak directly to the pilot.

I have my reservations about Gladwell, as described here: http://jseliger.com/2009/07/28/outliers-and-blink , but the pilot chapter isn't among his weaker so far as I can tell.

Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#29

Post by self »

po wrote: post #16

It is interesting that in the past, Gladwell has talked about how it takes 10,000 hours of real effort for someone to get effortlessly good at something. Here Greenspun is talking the same point.

The 10,000 hours thing is actually early on in the same book.

Re: Phil Greenspun debunks Malcolm Gladwell on airline safety

#30

Post by Psyonic »

tokenadult wrote: post #23
larsberg wrote: post #17

Gladwell's books are not scholarly research. They're more like hipster coffee shop conversations, and should be taken with a healthy dose of rigorous skepticism, even though they are usually quite enjoyable.

Gladwell's books are not scholarly research. They're more like hipster coffee shop conversations, and should be taken with a healthy dose of rigorous skepticism, even though they are usually quite enjoyable. I think Gladwell would largely agree with this description of his writings, or at least with the part that says that his writings should be approached skeptically and that they don't purport to be scholarly. From…

Hmmm... while that may be, many people are taking his books as nonfiction. Perhaps he should consider that, and be more careful, lest he spread potentially damaging information to the masses
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