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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

>The only issue is that Gladwell’s account doesn’t withstand serious scrutiny. As a piece of writing, The Bomber Mafia is engaging. As a work of history, it borders on reckless. Setting aside the numerous errors of fact and interpretation, Gladwell consistently cherry-picks from the historical record. Wittingly or not, he omits or downplays evidence that undermines the very premise of the book.

Sub out history for science in the above paragraph and it is the same criticism that Gladwell has been receiving for literally decades. The guy is a good writer and storyteller but he seemingly prioritizes good writing and story over telling the most honest story. That isn't an unusual trait among pop-non-fiction writers. The reason they become popular is what they write is interesting and it is easier to make things interesting if you are a little loose with the truth.

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Came here to say exactly that! Years ago he was a springboard for me to read further on various topics, each time leading me to conclude he doesn't give a shit about presenting the truth if it gets in the way of his story. :(

I honestly have no clue how his books are so popular

They’re like for a person who wants to appear like they read and have interesting though but it’s just a few anecdotes and a complete waste of time frankly

You've answered your own question. Actual wisdom is difficult to attain and often times difficult to further express in spoken or written language (ie. "tacit knowledge", if you believe such a thing exists I suppose). The kind of wisdom you DO attain may not be socially acceptable, either. But, you still want to have the appearance in front of your friends, colleagues and potential "partners" that you are somehow wise. So you turn to statistics, and damn lies that follow.

> Actual wisdom is difficult to attain...

In fact I think I've read that it takes 10,000 hours to attain wisdom or expertise.

I don't quite remember where I read that...

ba doom cha! God, as a musician and fan of Ericsson's actual work, that one drives me bloody bananas. Ericsson's own book "Peak" is worth reading. One must assume the motivation to write some for lay people was at least partly out of frustration at hearing his academic work mis-quoted so damn much because of Outliers. It would make me CRAZY.

Yes it does that but it also makes them feel smart.

How pretentious. A person reads what they read because they like it. That's all that's necessary. For everyone else, there's textbooks and papers.

and clearly that's not so important. You're someone who wanted to learn more, and without him you may not have.

“As I’ve written more books I’ve realised there are certain things that writers and critics prize, and readers don’t. So we’re obsessed with things like coherence, consistency, neatness of argument. Readers are indifferent to those things” - Malcolm Gladwell

Excellent quote. Critics say the same thing when explaining the popularity of novels like The Da Vinci Code. I wonder if general readers really don't approach non-fiction any more critically than they approach fiction.

Why would they? This person is claiming to be a metaexpert relaying what experts are saying. If somone doesn't have research skills or even know the structure of academia then they're probably very used to having to trust people. I'm wondering if they even have the skills to check anything if they wanted to: somone tried to support a bullshit etymology for an Arabic word by citing some pseudoscience website to me. That to them is just as credible as wiktionary or anything else.

I’d separate those two. The Da Vinci code is not supposed to represent a factual telling of reality; it’s a fictional novel. You might not like it as a piece of high art, but most of us understand the difference between art and pop literature. Heck, most of us consume and like “guilty pleasure” media, I actually rather enjoyed Angels & Demons by the same author.

Malcolm Gladwell is purporting to communicate factual reality. If he discards good arguments and evidence to entertain, then he is doing a real measurable harm in a way that Dan Brown is not.

> The Da Vinci code is not supposed to represent a factual telling of reality

It was published with a preface titled "FACT" claiming that all the secret societies and rituals and documents in the novel were historically accurate. That was the book's whole schtick.

Eh, lots of books use the whole “this is totally the secret history of …” as a gimmick; they’re still sold in the fiction section.

But sill, a lot of people there is some kind of truth on them.

Some people are fools.

There was no "..wink, wink" to the da vinci code.

The author specifically claimed that certain parts of the book - he listed exactly which parts - were documented historical truth. Isn't that "purporting to communicate factual reality"?

If some people thought that a fictional book sold as such contained true things, then they are gullible fools likely to fall for anything. I wouldn’t read too much into that.

You're welcome to think so, but that doesn't change the fact that Dan Brown was unambiguously purporting to communicate factual reality.

More so that Gladwell, in fact - I don't think any of Gladwell's books ever had a "the following parts of this book are historical fact" preface! (though a few of them could arguably have used one...)

Very few people have figured out how to square this circle.

And those that do often live long enough to see themselves become the pop-villain.

In other word readers like enjoyable stories. But I think these things are important especially because readers are indifferent to them, otherwise it’s too easy and tempting to slip into fiction, which of course will make the book more enjoyable. Writing fiction marketed as non-fiction is a proven commercial recipe, but it’s dishonest to say the least.

Considering his history being on speed dial for the tobacco industry when they wanted damage control, I'm not sure it's so innocuous as just wanting to tell an interesting story.

I’m not sure if that’s really a problem though. I read The Tipping Point and, yes, he isn’t always historically accurate but the point isn’t really the history in the first place. It’s about whatever big idea he’s taking about. If his largely fictional account of history teaches me the big idea, then I don’t really see the big deal.

Furthermore, he is extremely receptive to criticism and never presents himself as the one true source of fact.

Assuming his big idea is correct (which is in danger due to being built on fiction).

> The guy is a good writer and storyteller but he seemingly prioritizes good writing and story over telling the most honest story. That isn't an unusual trait among pop-non-fiction writers.

It’s not fair at all to cast Malcolm Gladwell as typical of pop nonfiction writers—there are tons of great and serious writers in the genre. It’s truly a shame that Malcolm Gladwell, an utter hack, has been consistently publishing garbage for decades and that he has such a wide audience.

I'm not going to disagree with the merits of your point, but I do want to provide clarification that I think there is a gap between "not unusual" and "typical". I think the former means it isn't rare while the later means it applies to most people. To make up a number, if this applied to 20% of people it would be both "not unusual" and "not typical".

Despite the undeniably pattern of problematic framings (particularly how Gladwell invites readers to feel that they now have the answers as opposed to the scientific mindset of now feeling that they have so many more questions), I don't think "utter hack" is fair.

Gladwell is not only a superb storyteller, he's sincerely interested in learning himself, has intriguing ideas… it's sloppy (almost in a Gladwellian manner) to be angry about the problems with his approach and then just insist that the conclusion is that his stuff is just garbage and he's just a hack.

really great usage of Gladwellian here

Lol. I see his critics did exactly that. The whole anti-ten-thousand-hours people cherry picks borderline arguments and ignores overall correctness of his general point.

I think the whole ten-thousand-hours is doing exactly that, it presents some cherry-picked facts and ignores giving substantial evidence. The main point of the book is quite obvious before Gladwell wrapped it into pop science: hard work does pay off one way or another but the extent of his generalization is ... pop science

There was a good freakonomics podcast episode on this where they interviewed both Gladwell and the original author. The person who did the original study basically said Gladwell was not representing his research accurately.

If you read the author the original work, Gladwell got 80% right, 20% deviation on non-essential issues. Of course a pop science book can be said not representing the original research "accurately". I think the author focused more on the difference because there is Gladwell's book received too many backlashes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Del...

I don't know, seems like they have pretty different views based on the article you linked.

""He's [Ericsson] a hard practice guy, and I'm a soft practice guy." Gladwell claims that talent is important with an intentional dedication to practice and having a support system is vital to produce superior outcomes. It is not all about methodical effort as Ericsson claims."

That's not "pretty different views". That's agree on all the basics but having a different sense of how much talent matters.

How about this? (The sentence you left out directly before that quote)

"Malcolm Gladwell's point-of-view about deliberate practice is different from Ericsson's view."

"Hard Practice" vs "Soft Practice" is the center of the argument, it is the point of contention. No one is going to argue that practice isn't important, they are going to argue how you should practice and how much it matters compared to other factors. They disagree on both of these points, so no, they don't agree.

> "Hard Practice" vs "Soft Practice" is the center of the argument, it is the point of contention.

If you focus on the difference, yes, it is the major difference between them. But if you focus on the main point (the overwhelming importance of 10 year of deliberate practice for one to become a top expert in a field), it is non-essential. There is no concrete empirical answer to how much exactly talent matters, even now.

Where I see people get 10k hours wrong is they think it *guarantees* top shelf world class success. That's a misinterpretation. The 10k rule is: *If* you make it to the top, you will almost certainly have put in at least 10k hours.

I'm not a Gladwell fan so I'm not certain about what he said. I'm only wanting to point out the difference between the rule and how very many misinterpret it.

Two common misinterpretations:

- 10k hours guarantees top success

- 10k hours practice is required for top success

The 10k hours rule does not say either. The 10k hours rule only says 10k hours deliberate practice is generally required to be a top expert in most fields. So there are cases where 10k hours practice is not sufficient, and there are cases where talent people (Mozart?) need way fewer practice than regular people.

The 10k hours rule also does not say top experts need more hours to be better. So there is "debunk" claiming no correlation found among top expert performance and practice which is kind of strawman attack.

Mozart is literally in Gladwell's book as an example of someone who got their 10k hours in early. Why do you feel the need to comment while clearly never having read the book you're defending?

I have a different view on the Mozart's case, but not sure about it. Hence the question mark.

Correctness of what? That a single variable explains success? Its completely ludicrous

"single variable explains success"? It is not what it about.

Its exactly that when you keep saying 10 000 hours is a magic number.

I would argue that 10,000 hours is represented as an inflection point in his book, more as a, "This number, with one significant digit, kept showing up when Gladwell would interview people who were great at specific things" instead of a, "do this amount of a specific thing and you'll then be great at that specific thing" or "magic" number in that sense.

It's hardly a steadfast rule and he never presents it as such, but it's easy to squint real hard and see it that way, if you just want to argue or be upset.

Wow. Do you think it is exactly 10 000 hours? It is exactly 10 000 hours for everyone? I don't understand this kind of nonsensical interpretation.

It's not a magic number so much as an attempt to redefine expertise. While shilling a self-help book. A lie at the kernel of a con.

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