Not to seem unfairly partial towards Steve Jobs, but after Malcolm Gladwell's repeated rants against him, I started trusting his (Gladwell's) judgement a whole lot less.
Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
71–80 of 232 posts
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I've been saying this for a while now.
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ru…
> 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). I'm too lazy to look for the actual references, but in one form or another climate-related arguments for the "superiority" of Europeans were made in the late 1700s and in the 1800s (and towards the end of the 1800s a more racist undertone emer…
My recollection is that Diamond's argument is slightly different. He argues that the east-west orientation of Eurasia meant that societies were more easily able to expand, because you experience relatively little climate variation moving along parallels than you do moving up and down meridians, which you are forced to do when you expand in a north-south oriented continent like America or Africa.
Similarly Eurasia had a wider variety of indigenous grains suitable for cultivation, and more large mammals suitable for domestication, and these could be taken with a population when the migrated (because of the aforementioned east-west orientation).
These advantages meant that populations were able to increase more rapidly, which necessitated an earlier development of agriculture, which lead to further productivity gains as improving food yields meant that people could spend more time developing more advanced technology.
The increased population densities had two further advantages - firstly, it meant that wars were more frequent, so Eurasians developed more advanced weaponry (the "guns" and "steel" of the title). Secondly, evolutionary pressures selected for resistance to diseases that could spread easily in crowded environments (the "germs").
So it's a little bit more subtle than just "our climate is inherently better for deep philosophical thoughts" or "our climate means that we are more productive workers".
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#74Scary fact: everything you "know" is based on convincing storytelling. Perhaps reading Gladwell is a good way to be reminded of this, that all knowledge is tentative, subject to revision. (If yours isn't, you're dogmatic, an epistemological fundamentalist! Even logic has completeness/consistency limitations. At least, those are the limitations we know of so far...).
When you say storytelling, I think you're only talking about knowledge by description. Knowledge by acquaintance is equally valid, and is based on direct experience.
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#75I 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…
"new scientist" etc also play this role. Though fairly accurate as far as it goes, it is pop-science. http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=1777
There's another great one from SMBC about how to tell the difference between a math enthusiast from a mathematician.
I won't try to find it since I'm on mobile, but it's just as good.
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ru…
> 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). I'm too lazy to look for the actual references, but in one form or another climate-related arguments for the "superiority" of Europeans were made in the late 1700s and in the 1800s (and towards the end of the 1800s a more racist undertone emer…
It's usually called environmental determinism and is something no modern anthropologist or geographer really wants to be associated with (as much as a modern biologist would want to be associated with eugenics or phrenology).
GGS did cause some despair among academics, as century old discredited ideas were presented as science to the public.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2008....
The popularity of the work Guns, germs and steel (GGS) has served to bring the question of human–environment connections once again to the forefront of popular thought. We assert that the recent success of GGS represents both a persistence of environmental determinist logic and a contemporary trend that privileges the environment as the primary influence on human–environment relationships. […] The book is found to mirror earlier environmental determinism by failing to take into account many of the advances in human–environmental thought since the early twentieth century. Its popular success suggests the pitfalls of failures to acknowledge the complex, intertwined and indivisible relationship that exists among humans and their environment. Furthermore, there is evidence that the environmental determinism espoused in GGS has caught the attention of international development policymakers potentially influencing future outlays of aid and assistance to the developing world. These conclusions raise cautionary flags against repeating past theoretical mistakes by accepting simplistic, causal explanations based largely on a deterministic conception of the natural environment.
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#77Between this and yesterday's Gladwell-doubting article it seems Malcolm has reached a tipping point of his very own.
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ru…
Ok, I see where you're coming from.
But I disagree that this puts Jared Diamond in the same category as the other three. I think the fact that he is, for the most part, not wrong, clearly sets him apart from Gladwell, Lehrer and Freakonomics.
Dumping too much data on your readers to ram home the point you're making may be tedious to read, but it's not reprehensible the way twisting and stretching the truth to appear original and profound is.
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
"new scientist" etc also play this role. Though fairly accurate as far as it goes, it is pop-science. http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=1777
There's another great one from SMBC about how to tell the difference between a math enthusiast from a mathematician. I won't try to find it since I'm on mobile, but it's just as good.
Do you mean this one? It's the only one I can quickly find that includes "math enthusiast" and "mathematician", though it's not exactly "how to tell the difference". http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2320
Re: Should we stop believing Malcolm Gladwell?
#80If not people like Gladwell then what should we be really reading ?