"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."
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.
I'm not quite understanding all of the hate on Galdwell, in the parent, the OP, and generally.
You (parent) have glossed over one of the GP's points: Galdwell shares some credible scientific research via the popular press. Yes, there is undoubtedly some spin on it, but chucking out the entirety of Gladwell also dismisses, as just one example, implicit cognition research done at Harvard.
As techies and scientists we can gloat all day that we know correlation doesn't equate to causation, but exploring the stories behind correlations can help uncover the causal chain.
Goodness knows a great deal of qualitative academic research (in top journals, no less) suffer some of the same criticisms Gladwell is enduring. Social sciences accept different ontologies and epistimologies [e.g., 1], and postivism is only one such, albeit the most common. Properly done, interpretivism, too, is accepted.
I think my biggest frustration with the Gladwell-bashing is that even though Gladwell's connections between research and anecdote are sometimes tenuous, those engaging in the critique don't first demonstrate an understanding of the epistimological/ontological standards in social research.
I don't know if I'm too cynical, or if he's too optimistic, but the "as long as the ideas in the book cause them to think" part is where I think he misses the mark. I know too many people who read them as gospel.
If Gladwell Published in Nature or some other primary journal, I could understand the hate, but he publishes in The New Yorker and writes popular books. There is a place for people who expose ideas to broader audiences, and in fact it is important for catching the interest of people who might one day go deeper and challenge some of the ideas.
I would liken him to my exposure to Martin Gardner and AK Dewdney in the back pages of Scientific American as a kid. They weren't setting out to use their platform to do basic research in math and computer science, or to write definitive texts, but instead were popularizing interesting and though-provoking ideas in these area in a manner that was challenging yet accessible to a broader audience.
I know that I definitely would have been far less likely to pursue a career in science and technology had it not been for those who popularized the biz, like those two, Hofstadter, Tracy Kidder, et al.
As for people blinding taking what they consume as gospel, that seems to be a fairly universal human characteristic, whether the source is a cable news outlet, a religion, etc. It is a high bar to set to require all written communication to be immune to misinterpretation or over generalization, and the burden rests more on the audience.
"Fairly characterize the evidence for your position" shouldn't apply only in Nature.
If Gladwell came up with an hypothesis and gave anecdotes both supporting and disproving his hypothesis, that would be "exposing ideas." Instead, he (sometimes implicitly, but usually explicitly) suggests that his hypothesis is a universal law.
Of course, Gladwell writes well. But the OP is exactly right that Gladwell's bread-and-butter is inappropriate extrapolation from a few anecdotes to some pithy "theory of everything."
It's plainly evident that as journalists and pop- social- science writers go, Gladwell is spectacularly successful. This article posits that the reason for that success is that he has hit on a formula of catchy titles and appeals to lucrative audiences.
Do any of you actually believe this? If so, square that belief with the fact that the author of this blog post could clearly apply the same formula. Why isn't he spectacularly successful too?
My guess: however easy this blogger thinks it is to come up with the theme of a Gladwell book, it is far, far harder to write that book as compellingly as Gladwell does. Put differently: Gladwell is just an extremely talented writer.
Jab at him all you want for the superficiality of the ideas he's trafficking in, or for being beholden to corporate sponsors. I'm not sticking up for what he writes. But what he writes isn't the key to his success. Gladwell could write the phone book and it'd be more convincing than this post was.
Malcolm Gladwell obviously does much more than just applying this formula. First of all, he applies it well. And we know here that ideas are nothing, execution is everything. He also plays and looks the part of a sophisticated modern intellectual, publishes in the New Yorker, gives inspiring speeches, even if they're just excerpts from his books.
None of that means that his works don't follow a predictable pattern. And none of his achievements should stop anyone from poking fun at that.
> Jab at him all you want for the superficiality of the ideas he's trafficking in, or for being beholden to corporate sponsors. I'm not sticking up for what he writes. But what he writes isn't the key to his success. Gladwell could write the phone book and it'd be more convincing than this post was.
Maybe this will seem snobby, but isn't such success a problem itself? That is, I wouldn't be particularly proud of writing something that succeeded almost entirely because of its style and despite its subject matter (or truth or information, however you want to put that).
Being a great writer is a tremendous skill. No question. But don't you find it weird to be defending someone while saying his ideas are "superficial" and he's "beholden to corporate sponsors"?
For that matter, do I have to defend Beethoven and Mozart? They wrote most of their music for money. Is it somehow purer to make art designed to appeal to an audience of rich aristocratic patrons and their friends than to make art designed to appeal to rich corporate patrons and their friends? Because I can't really tell the difference. [1]
The text and subject matter of Beethoven's seventh symphony's are not merely "superficial": They're entirely absent. The work has no words. Therefore it doesn't express any ideas but abstract musical ones. I guess I should feel ashamed for liking it?
Of course, a musicologist would insist that Mozart and Beethoven's stylistic and formal innovations were anything but "superficial". But to be fair we must apply the same standard to Gladwell, and note that he is himself a gifted stylist and a master of his own form.
---
[1] Actually, this isn't quite true: I tend to prefer corporate art to aristocratic art. A lot of corporate art gets reproduced and spread around; that's what most of it is for. Even non-aristocrats get a chance to enjoy Wilco albums, and we even get to hear their Sprint commercials for "free". Whereas history is replete with great art that was written for aristocrats, but then was kept out of public view, and sometimes even lost entirely, for decades or centuries. A fine example is Bach's Brandenburg Concerti:
…"widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era", composed by Bach, gifted to a margrave in 1721, who apparently never had them performed. The scores sat around in his library. When the margrave died the manuscripts were sold for about $20 (in 2008 dollars). They were eventually rediscovered in Brandenburg's archives in 1849 and published in 1850. Mozart never heard them. Beethoven never heard them.
How I digress. Let's drive this footnote back towards the point: I, for one, would rather have my life's work superficially glossed by Malcolm Gladwell in an artfully-written and wildly popular book than have it sit in a trunk unread until someone throws it away.
Substance is as subjective as style. A list of equations or prescriptive "how-to"s can have an equally minimal affect on the reader as a rapid-fire anecdotal book of stories. The passage of time can change a book of great substance into a "use leaches to cure leukemia" piece of content.
The point is that this whole argument of intrinsic value is not nearly as black and white as the talking heads have made it seem. Gladwell's structure of storytelling is merely different and may not be for you.
Side Note, it is fallacy to confuse a man who has been accused of being "beholden to corporate sponsors" as one who has not put out any valuable work.
There's also an ethical constraint that prevents people like the author from copying Gladwell's model. And it's plainly obvious that things in general are much easier, when you don't have to adhere to a set of ethics.
Gladwell is clearly a talented writer - the guy can make an entertaining presentation about condiments, which is no small feat.
Mike Daisey is a gifted spoken-word artist as well. Yet he is someone whose example I doubt many here would aspire to.
Gladwell might be a compelling - albeit extremely formulaic - writer, but how does he fare as a journalist?
I don't think the parent means to compare Gladwell directly to Daisey. Daisey is just an example of how easy it is to spin tales if you don't care about truth.
If I understand him, the parent is responding to this question of yours "Why isn't [the blogger] spectacularly successful too?" The answer is "ethics": some people don't follow easy paths to success because they care about what they write (say, do, etc.). I doubt you really disagree with that, but I find your first post odd. You go out of your way to defend Gladwell, even though you seem to find his thinking pretty weak and his corporate connections too close for comfort.
Yes, Gladwell writes well, but is that all that matters?
> Gladwell might be a compelling - albeit extremely formulaic - writer, but how does he fare as a journalist?
In fairness, we probably shouldn't judge him as a journalist. He's a storyteller and a popularizer instead: someone who reads scholarly works and whips them into a shape that larger audiences can and will read.
Case in point: in 1985, Timothy Wilson published an amazing article called "Strangers to Ourselves". Years later, he turned it into a book (of the same title). But most people haven't heard of Wilson or that book, certainly nowhere near as many people as have heard of or read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. By Gladwell's own admission, most of the ideas in Blink start from Wilson's work.[1]
I think you're right about Gladwell, but wrong in general. I can criticize the awful music of Linkin Park without subjecting myself to the claim that I'd be doing it myself if it were really that easy.
The biggest benefit to constructing Gladwell books is that everyone is able to discuss the book at cocktail parties even if they haven't read it. This means that people can put the book on their shelf and feel as if they've read it, without actually having to do the work of reading it. Genius, really.
Not only that, but the concepts as stated are 1) so bad that people can already hate the books without having read them - so it's not only part of the conversation at parties, but also the loudest, most contentious conversation at parties, and 2) so vague that they have to be referred to by their short, pithy names, loudly and repeatedly, or else everyone would forget what they were arguing about, and 3) those names are also old tropes that everyone has heard or the essential words in old tropes that everyone has heard, so people feel like the books or concepts must have been around longer and have more basis than they actually do.
Of course, this is really the list of the biggest benefits to publishing Gladwell books:)
I bet you could go through the same process with Thomas Friedman:
1. Come up with a principle long-since scientifically proven false.
"Hmm, how about 'The World is Flat'"
2. Write a book called "My Dull, Platitudinous Travel Diary"
"Indians in call centers can talk with Americans! Amazing!"
3. Now change the title of that book to the long-since disregarded principle.
"Everyone will want to read this because the editors at the NYT are
inexplicably required to keep me on staff, offering me undeserved
credibility for the rest of time!"
Maybe his conclusions seem unconventional (or at least, mildly inhuman) because Friedman always oversimplifies with the view from the boardroom. Never the street. Otherwise your formula could well apply to Chomsky or Taibbi, on their worst days.
I'm glad to see that someone commented his S.H.A.M.E project link in the comments down under the original article, to the point that it's worth re-linking here: http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/
I read the Tipping point and found it quite an interesting book, but I've not bought anymore of his books after I had read his profile/sources linked above.
I never saw the Shame Project, but after reading the above link I think they're over-reaching way more than Gladwell's worst stories.
For example they say, "In 1990, a Gladwell article in the Washington Post warned that laws banning cigarettes could “put a serious strain on the nation’s Social Security and Medicare programs.”"
I read the article (as they link to it), and frankly it's not as inflammatory as their quote would lead one to believe. Gladwell brings up a reasonable point that smokers tend to die younger and hence may reduce total costs in the health care system. And he, rightly IMO, says that we should move the anti-smoking movement as a health issue rather than a cost-cutting issue (And 22 years after this article was written his position has been borne out. Few people view smoking as a cost issue.)
Regarding the American Spectator -- this was apparently one of the few places he was offered a job. This "3rd Party" list he's on also includes Penn Jillette and I suspect many other names we know. Being an open ear isn't the same as being a shill. John Gruber is a shill, while Nilay Pital is an open ear.
> In 1999, Gladwell wrote a New Yorker article defending the explosion of ADHD amphetamine prescriptions to children against criticism from media and public figures. Gladwell’s response: “...are too many children taking the drug—or too few?”
Now, I don't know anything about the other claims in Shame Project, but... when you call Ritalin (methylphenidate) an amphetamine, you immediately call into question everything else that's written. MPH is not derived from or related to anything in the amphetamine family. There are similarities in the mechanism of action, but it's just as close to other stimulants, e.g. cocaine.
I don't know if that's deliberate (since amphetamines are obviously "bad") -- that is, FUD -- or if it's simple ignorance, but I'm suddenly very wary of everything else they write on his work.
Not to comment on Gladwell specifically, but it seems to be well-accepted that lifespans in excess of the average retirement age are a huge cost to the system, particularly because of the disproportionate sums used in the very last few years of treatment.
It may be cruel to say so, but it is logical that longer lifespans are costly.
I dont believe that. It all depends on how you die, not how long you live. My grandfather died at home at 96 years of age, no nurse, no equipment. Just my grandmom and him, at home. I'd bet his medical cost of passing away is far lower than a type-2 diabetic in their mid-60s hospitalized for 5 years before passing, or a lung cancer patient (vis a vis Gladwell's example) going through chemo for 5 years before expiring. His analysis needs much more rigor, imo.
Careful! The authors at that site both have a strong background in satire. It is quite possible that S.H.A.M.E. is not meant to be taken seriously. Combine this with the over the top language, and the numerous logical errors, and it is really hard to escape that conclusion.
Here are a couple examples of the logic errors. If a person gives speeches for money, and is hired by group X to give a speech, S.H.A.M.E. takes this to mean that the person is a shill for X. Another good example is in the profile of Steven D. Levitt, where they tag him as a union buster, based on the fact that he wrote a paper that proved statistically that some teachers in Chicago were cheating on standardized test. In S.H.A.M.E. logic this means that Levitt is a union buster, because someone might use that information as part of an argument against the teacher's union.
Regardless of whether the site is satire and so the errors are intentional, or the site is serious and the authors don't know how to reason, it seems rather silly to decide to forego an author you found quite interesting based on that site.
Exactly! Once you've heard that someone's opinions disagree with your worldview, why read anything that person has to say? Sounds like a good way to live.
I think the problem is not that the point was unreasonable, but that he was basically being paid by tobacco companies to promote it, and he didn't disclose this.
This was pretty funny. The concept of his books are pretty cheesy but I think what makes him successful is that he actually writes the books vs. sitting around and poking holes in it.
As do many other people, but the difference between Malcolm Gladwell and the many, many successful authors who have written much more (and much better) is that Gladwell lets his readers buy the vicarious enjoyment of success. It's just like watching an action-hero movie and feeling the thrill of being that brave, that strong, that resourceful, that much tougher than the bad guys. Except that Gladwell has managed to combine the best parts of reading a book about Vietnam and watching Rambo: First Blood Part II. You get the virtuous smart-person feeling of the former and the escapist fantasy of the latter.
If Gladwell has any value, it's that he inspires us to imagine ourselves rising above our current limitations. He does for us as adults lusting after career success what books like the Hardy Boys adventures did for us as kids. And maybe we might elevate ourselves by acting out these fantasies in reality.
However, in his article in the latest New Yorker (about the distance runner Alberto Salazar) he steps back from inspiration and embraces the vicarious, voyeuristic nature of his work. After taking us through the vicarious thrill of being so committed to winning that we run through our self-protective mental limits all the way up to the true limits of our bodies, eliminating all slack, he absolves us of responsibility: Salazar's competitive career ended ten years too early; Gladwell himself abandoned competitive running because he couldn't take the pain; we need feel no self-consciousness about failing to follow Salazar's insane example.
The perfect time to read it would be while taking a nice break at work.
Gladwell has managed to combine the best parts of reading a book about Vietnam and watching Rambo: First Blood Part II. You get the virtuous smart-person feeling of the former and the escapist fantasy of the latter.
I think you nailed it here. This is why I enjoy reading Gladwell - his writing inspires me, and without the fist pumping bravado of motivational speakers.
I haven't read much Gladwell, so I'll set aside factual accuracy of criticisms of him. But I don't think your comment is responsive to the OP. If the OP's argument is true, Gladwell is sharing ersatz knowledge and distorting reality. That he's successful at doing it is irrelevant to the truth of what he writes.
It's disappointing to have this as #1 story in HN. Hacking is about doing stuff, not putting down (or hyping) people who do stuff. I never had any trouble simply avoiding Gladwell when I wanted to.
Gladwell says himself, in his own books, that he writes not to change the minds of his readers, but to make his readers think.
The stories he presents alongside the ideas he presents are just illustrations. Every situation, whether it's Bill Gates' success, the problem of choosing NFL Quarterbacks, or the rise of Hush Puppies has an incredible amount of variables that can never be fully grasped.
If you look at the top answer there, the writer is clearly missing the point of Gladwell's writing on a number of issues. The one complaint about his writing I've seen the most often is about the 10,000 hour rule. The writer of the Quora answer puts it this way: "[Gladwell is wrong in saying] That 10,000 hours of practice will turn you into a genius on the order of Mozart or Michael Jordan".
He never says anything like that in Outliers! The main arguments that I got out of the 10,000 hour rule is that the most successful people of any area tend to follow a similar trend: born into an exceptional situation to lead to greatness in that area, dedicated practice for thousands of hours, above average IQ (but IQ past ~120 is not too important). Saying that dedicated practice alone will turn anyone into the top 0.001% of a given profession is absurd, and Gladwell doesn't say that at all.
Maybe if Gladwell bashers stopped taking everything he writes as if he were prescribing ideas of thought, they could enjoy his compelling writing and thought-provoking ideas.
Amazing how you could change a few phrases here and there and turn this straight into a Michael Lewis how to.
Just trade business for high finance with a pinch of major league sports and spend your anecdotes on overwrought descriptions of your main character's idiosyncrasies.
I had never heard the last aphorism in the OP before; it got the biggest laugh out of me:
Remember the old joke among social scientists – “Predict the future? It’s hard enough to predict the past!” However, those social scientists haven’t realized that it’s easy to predict the past as long as you’re talking about one story at a time.
I had my own hypothesis of a Gladwell recipe: he takes a well-executed research paper, and expands on the references, and their references, and then adds links to other pop-science books. The original idea could be told more precisely within 15 pages, as exemplified by the journal article, and his 300 page books give little glimpses of that clarity when they are verbatim from the original, and mud the water elsewhere.
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."
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.