The Malcolm Gladwell "Effect"

No one loves to debunk conventional wisdom more than I. God knows there are
a ton of opportunities to do just that. It has been going as long as
people were saying that the earth was flat....and it will continue to go
on. We hear someone reputable say something, our teachers in school say
something, our parents, our history books, our politicians or clergy, etc..,
and we put it in the "vault". We take it as Truth. It's a
colossal mistake and the source of so much that is wrong with our
society. It's crucial to investigate and verify. If you don't....
you can get a World War, or the spreading of a disease, or the call for
"jihad", or contamination of our drinking water, and much much more.

Debunking false premises is mandatory...even when you are debunking a famous debunker.

Malcolm Gladwell has become part of our culture. He is a best selling author of
many highly popular books. It's almost certain that someone you know has
read all or some of his works: "Outliers", "The Tipping
Point", "Blink", "David and Goliath", and more.
Gladwell likes to turn the world on it's head and force us to re-examine what
he claims is a false narrative. A former Washington Post staff writer, he
is brilliant with the pen and with the tongue. Gladwell is a truly gifted
speaker and storyteller. He challenges everything
(a man after my own heart). I recently was listening to Gladwell on youtube
talking about his book "The Outliers" where he makes a series of bold
assertions about how success is not really as much about innate talent but
about opportunity and luck. He makes an assertion that Bill Gates and
Steve Jobs and The Beatles (and many others) are success stories less because of their
extraordinary talent and more because of when they were born and other more
whimsical circumstances.

“But what truly distinguishes their histories is not
their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary oppor­tunities.”
(p. 55)

In "Outliers" Gladwell has a Chapter called "The 10,000 hour
rule" where he says that virtually everyone who is a virtuoso at anything,
be it the game of Chess, or composing great symphonies, playing golf, has spent upwards of
10,000 hours practicing at this craft; it's almost a law of physics. He
attempts to debunk the often cited stories of how Mozart was composing
symphonies at 12 years of age by saying that he didn't compose
"great" symphonies until he was 22...he needed the full "10,000" hours. Though I cannot say absolutely that Gladwell's claim regarding the 10,000 hour rule is false (though many have
written as such) I would say that this type of assertion got my ears up for
the simple fact that it seemed like an extraordinary claim that could never be
substantiated. How could anyone scientifically back up that claim?
Did he actually go back and archive records that verified how long
Beethoven, and Bach, and Bobby Fischer practiced at their crafts? Utterly
absurd. In the first place, no one keeps these kinds of records and in
the second place no one could imagine to have access to records such as these,
especially ones coming from the 17th century.

The problem with someone as crafty and gifted as Malcolm Gladwell is that he seems
like he must be smarter than you and me so therefore we just assume that what
he is saying is true. He seems to have no bias one way or another (except
to have a vehicle to be wildly popular and rich) so we have our guard down.

Gladwell then tells of what he calls "The Matthew Effect" where he correlates
success in certain sports like hockey and soccer with the months they were born
so as to show that the older athletes in a certain grade relative to their
peers had a much greater chance at being professionals than the younger
kids. This is a fair assertion to try and make and equally as important,
it is much more verifiable. It turns out that many people have studied
this assertion and concluded that there is no science behind Gladwell's
claims.

What got me perked up when listening to this claim was that I felt it was incumbent
upon Gladwell to reference his data, to tell his audience where he obtained his batch of scientific research. It is not only a courtesy, but it is what a person does who insists
on getting at Truth. It is my opinion that someone who is unwilling to
reference bombastic claims such as Gladwell's is pushing an insidious form of
mind control.

If I tell you that the world is flat and I don't even give you any
referenced scientific proof....then what does that say about me? It is
more P.T. Barnum than Walter Cronkite.

The same can be said of anyone who states opinion as fact. It is the most
insidious crime in journalism and politics today. People state their
personal views as if they are certifiable facts. This is not only deceitful
but it is dangerous and a sure sign that someone is concerned with overriding
your autonomy.

What makes it even more troubling is that Gladwell is so gifted and
entertaining...he makes some assertions that are certainly true so there is
always something to gleen if you are willing to be discerning. The irony
is that Gladwell serves as an advocate for something that I feel society
needs much more of...a keen skepticism and a challenging of the status quo of
ideas and institutions. In his zeal to get us to follow him down that
road and the road to consumption of his books, Gladwell has made us much
too aware of the dangers of stepping in lies...even and especially when they
are Gladwell's own.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to
entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

Food for Thought...