Pinker on Gladwell

November 15, 2009 3:39 PM

Steven Pinker takes Malcolm Gladwell to task in a NYT book review. "But Gladwell frequently holds forth about statistics and psychology, and his lack of technical grounding in these subjects can be jarring." "The common thread in Gladwell’s writing is a kind of populism, which seeks to undermine the ideals of talent, intelligence and analytical prowess in favor of luck, opportunity, experience and intuition."
posted by gallois (31 comments total)

People will continue reading and enjoying Gladwell just as they continue eating at McDonalds. They're both lowest common denominator junk food.
posted by exogenous at 3:44 PM on November 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

I wish that I could have such a simple, view of the world. Having stuff all figured out.

Oh and get rich from it.
posted by Danf at 3:47 PM on November 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Didn't we hate on this guy last week?
posted by Burhanistan at 3:47 PM on November 15, 2009 [10 favorites]

Gladwell posts always go so well here. See what I did there?
posted by fixedgear at 3:49 PM on November 15, 2009

of course people sometimes trade off safety for cost and convenience,

he said to the horse right before.

that was terrible, forgive me, but not as bad as this book review.
posted by Lutoslawski at 3:49 PM on November 15, 2009

So who's going to do the same to Pinker and his evolutionary psychology?
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:50 PM on November 15, 2009 [6 favorites]

I do know what you mean, exogenous, but maybe a more apposite example would be, like, an upscale restaurant that uses frozen burgers in its truffle baconburger, or whatever. As Steve Pinker notes, Gladwell's prose is very good, and he's a heck of a storyteller, and if you're not a math type, you may never have seen the word 'eigenvalue', and think, 'Yes, Gladwell, tell me about the igon values.'

This (the fact that he's less-obviously insidious) makes it more important to take him up on his errors in a public forum. Or it highlights the importance of teaching literacy in basic math, esp. statistics, to everyone, even more so those in the liberal arts. Or both. Probably both.
posted by voronoi at 3:52 PM on November 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

I feel like I say this in every Gladwell thread, but I think what's extraordinarily strong about his writing is his intuitive grasp of quantitative reasoning and mathematical thinking. He seems never to put a foot wrong despite having, as far as I know, no formal mathematical training.
posted by escabeche at 4:00 PM on November 15, 2009

Burhanistan: "Didn't we hate on this guy last week?"

No, that was the Freakonomics dudes.
posted by mwhybark at 4:05 PM on November 15, 2009

THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF KETCHUP, GODDAMNIT.
posted by fleetmouse at 4:15 PM on November 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

I largely agree with the reviewer: Gladwell is enormous fun to read because he tells a great story, writes exceptionally well and has a talent for finding nifty things you had no idea existed, but if you actually start thinking about what you've read, you realize there's an awful lot of "it turns out . . . " without much real support. Once you've had that realization it's impossible to read him without constantly thinking: "Really? Can that be true? That seems like far too sweeping a conclusion." And since he rarely gives any backup for his broadest generalizations, you're going to be left thinking that forever.

Having said that, the "Igon" thing is superbly idiotic, but surely it's some editor's fault not Gladwell's. He doesn't claim to have the expertise his quoted experts have.
posted by The Bellman at 4:19 PM on November 15, 2009

SLNYT posts are like SLYT posts.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 4:22 PM on November 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

SLNYT posts are like SLYT posts.

They're always about bacon or cats, or bacon-cats?
posted by nola at 4:34 PM on November 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

igon values

1. Don't cross the streams.
2. Don't look at the trap.
3. When someone asks you if you're a god, you say yes.
posted by kid ichorous at 4:35 PM on November 15, 2009 [18 favorites]

Yeah, I read Pinker's "The Blank Slate" and whenever archaeology came up to buttress the supposed origins of evolutionary psychological behaviour, I was rolling my eyes at his superficial grasp of what is, after all, the necessary proofs of EP: what is the evidence for the behaviour in the past which was supposedly being naturally selected? This is the realm of archaeology and to say Pinker demonstrated a sophomoric understanding of archaeological argument is to do a disservice to sophomores.

Gladwell is a journalist and a better writer than Pinker but I have never seen him claim to be a social scientist. Pinker is an original thinker and a zealot and apparently jealous as fuck.
posted by Rumple at 4:41 PM on November 15, 2009 [6 favorites]

Agree, Rumple!

To be fair, though, Pinker's a pretty good writer himself.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:45 PM on November 15, 2009

No, it wasn't last week, it was ten days ago. And I reiterate what I said there in this thread: no matter how terrible Gladwell may or may not be to you, I find it ridiculous given how many terrible things there are in the world that twice in November (and we're not even halfway done with the month!) there's been a whole post devoted to pointing out how unacceptable he is.
posted by Kiablokirk at 4:46 PM on November 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yes, we did this last week.
posted by jeanmari at 4:47 PM on November 15, 2009

As an overeducated high school teacher, I quite enjoyed Pinker's critique of Gladwell's ideas (and, increasingly, the Conventional Wisdom) on the ineffectiveness of teacher ed programs.
posted by HeroZero at 4:49 PM on November 15, 2009

They have the same hairdresser.
posted by fixedgear at 4:56 PM on November 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh goody, time for another round of mindless Gladwell hate. Glad it makes you folks feel good about yourselves.
posted by languagehat at 5:00 PM on November 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

...which seeks to undermine the ideals of talent, intelligence and analytical prowess in favor of luck, opportunity, experience and intuition.

Pinker is a strong proponent of evolutionary psychology. It is no surprise that he doesn't believe in luck, opportunity, experience, or intuition. He also, presumably, doesn't believe in what anti-racists call "privilege", which when you get down to it is a function of one group having better luck and opportunity than another group.

(Of course, Gladwell is also too savvy to call a spade a spade, and couches his stories in terms of easier-to-digest terms).
posted by muddgirl at 5:00 PM on November 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

I don't want to wade hip-deep into this, because I've already ingrained myself as a Robert McKee defender in another recent thread, but I like Gladwell. For that matter, I like Freakonomics. Because, while not comprehensive, they're quick reads and damn interesting on things that I hadn't thought much about before. It's silly to treat them like expert treatises though. They're just well-written pop-books by some smart people who've gotten lucky enough to get paid to follow whatever intellectual flight of fancy comes to their minds and write about it.

That bit about "undermin[ing] the ideals of talent, intelligence and analytical prowess in favor of luck, opportunity, experience and intuition," has to apply mostly to Outliers, I'm guessing, but it also kind of misses the point of both that book and of Gladwell's style and purpose in general.

Outliers was meant to explore, you know, statistical anomalies and to look for the root causes behind them which might have been overlooked or simply unknown to the general public. In his chapters about why, among similarly measured talented, intelligent people (often with analytical prowess), some of them reach the upper echelons in their fields while others become nothing, it makes sense to talk about luck, opportunity, experience and intuition - those are the fucking variables. Have there been bands as genius as The Beatles, with similar popular accessibility? Probably, but the point the book makes is that The Beatles also trudged for years playing together like it was their day job in front of disinterested audiences. It's not necessarily conclusive, but it's food for thought.

Similarly, the chapter on how the current system of Canadian Youth-League Hockey heavily favors those born at the beginning of the year seems pretty sound, and opens one's eyes not only to how luck plays a factor, but how if the system were better designed, talent might play more of a factor, leading to better NHL teams as a whole.

He shares with Levitt the trait of not really having a grand theory about his subjects, but even more so Gladwell really just takes a concept and explores all sides of it, without a need for a real conclusion. Thus, with Blink, a lot of people have been frustrated about what, exactly, the point was. People make snap decisions, huh? And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't? Okay, thanks. And that's a fine criticism if one imagines that the book is supposed to be a dissertation on why snap-decisions are good or why their bad, but makes a lot less sense if you approach it, as I believe Gladwell did, by thinking, "Snap decision-making is just a fact of life. I'd like to show some stories and case studies of when it has worked and when it hasn't."

I'm pretty sure I've said this here before, but I get the feeling that most criticisms of Gladwell are that he's doing a poor or incomplete job at something that isn't what he's actually trying to do at all.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:03 PM on November 15, 2009 [9 favorites]

Pinker is a strong proponent of evolutionary psychology.

Pinker always struck me as kind of a hack.

Pinker is an original thinker and a zealot and apparently jealous as fuck.

I think Gladwell's ideas make a lot of people at the top feel nervous because he's basically claiming that they're no better then an average "smart, hard working person", just luckier. And he's easy to hate because his entire thesis essentially makes the argument that he's only in the position he's in because of luck. So if Gladwell is more popular then Pinker it's only because Gladwell was luckier in his choice of topics.

I remember a Paul Grahm essay once where he actually made the claim that rich people make 10,000 times as much money because they work 10,000 times harder or something like that. That was absurd of course.

The criticism from most people to gladwell's argument that the people who are rich and successful were lucky is "well duh". But from those who are rich and successful it's more like "how can you make the claim we're not just intrinsically better then everyone else!" But of course, the rich and successful obviously have a much greater access to the popular media. That's also why they seemed to hate blogs so much, because it removed their monopoly on opinion forming.
posted by delmoi at 5:36 PM on November 15, 2009 [6 favorites]

Oh goody, time for another round of mindless Gladwell hate. Glad it makes you folks feel good about yourselves.

But this isn't just Gladwell hate. This is like the irresistible force vs. immovable object of egotism.
posted by Chuckles at 5:49 PM on November 15, 2009

Ouch! What a cheeky nincompoop Pinker can be.

Pinker is accusing Gladwell of indulging in all of those vague generalizations and unsubstantiated theorizing that Pinker loves to indulge in himself.

Pinker's books are filled with breezy forays outside of his area of specialty, a habit not uncommon in scientists writing for a popular audience.

an example (speaking of the "straw we"):

"Artists and critics have long believed that an appreciation of elite art is ennobling and have spoken of cultural philistines in tones ordinarily reserved for child molesters..."

"The dominant theories of elite art and criticism in the 20th century grew out of a militant denial of human nature."

(from The Blank Slate)

These are valid interpretations, but they are stated as facts, not opinions, and if you have studied any art history then the details are much more nuanced than presented here.

Pinker does have interesting insights and thought provoking ideas in his books, but his thunderous pronouncements about various things outside of his grasp can be annoying at times.
posted by ovvl at 5:51 PM on November 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

I can't think of two individuals I would rather watch get into a straight up fist fight than Malcom Gladwell and Stephen Pinker. I sincerely hope their debate continues and eventually devolves into fisticuffs.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 6:14 PM on November 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

I don't care much whether or not Gladwell is right or not, or if he's a good author (I read Blink, and I thought it was a bit repetitive, without much concrete information). I just love watching people fight over how bad he is. It's like intellectual pro-wrestling.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:31 PM on November 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

>
That's a perfect example of our culture putting too much stock into "Concerned Outsiders." Our culture just loves to take advice from people who can draw conclusions from quick observations. Just look at Glenn Beck. He appeared out of nowhere and has no college degree. And yet millions turn to him for political advice.

/Gladwellian conclusion
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:35 PM on November 15, 2009

People will continue reading and enjoying Gladwell just as they continue eating at McDonalds. They're both lowest common denominator junk food.

Nonsense. If you think that Gladwell is lowest common denominator junk food (with his essays in the New Yorker, for Pete's sake), then I you seriously misunderestimate how low the common denominator can go.

Gladwell isn't junk food. He is a talented essayist whose reach and breadth sometimes exceed his grasp. Specialists don't like him because he sometimes makes silly, but not critically important, mistakes, and because he has to simply complicated concepts in order to make them readable and marketable. Those are venial sins in my book. If the same people who were reading Harlequin novels forty years ago are reading What the Dog Saw today, then I think society may be better off. A little knowledge is not always a dangerous thing.
posted by Slap Factory at 6:51 PM on November 15, 2009 [4 favorites]

Gladwell > Pinker
posted by birdie birdington at 7:04 PM on November 15, 2009