"JCAlan" (jcalan)
08/04/2016 at 08:28 • Filed to: None
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"JCAlan" (jcalan)
08/04/2016 at 08:28 • Filed to: None | 1
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I just heard Patrick George on Malcolm Gladwell’s new free podcast !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. The episode re-examines the whole Toyota runaway accelerator incident, and featured a snipit from a (probably old) interview with Jalopnik editor Patrick George explaining how !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to recreate the results, and then ran the story as if they were in a stock car.
Anyway, it was neat. I’m a huge Malcolm Gladwell fan, and have been following Jalopnik for years so it was cool to see two of my passions combine.
TractorPillow
> JCAlan
08/04/2016 at 08:36 |
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Haven’t listened to it yet, but am a subscriber. Will give it a listen soon.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> JCAlan
08/04/2016 at 09:31 |
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I generally enjoy Gladwell’s stuff, but what do you think of the recent criticism of him and the push-back against the 10,000 hours of practice idea in Outliers?
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-study-dest…
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JCAlan
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/04/2016 at 09:53 |
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I don’t think that anyone ever thought that 10,000 hours was a magic formula that guaranteed you’d be a rock star or whatever. Taking music as the example, there are tons of artists that spend their whole lives practicing and never make one dollar off record sales. But playing an insane amount of gigs most definitely made the Beatles better artists.
Gladwell recently stated that his point was not that anyone can do it, it was actually the opposite. He was pointing out that certain people have distinct advantages that help them get where they end up. For instance, the example of Bill Gates having unlimited time to play with computers when very few people had that kind of opportunity doesn’t show that anyone can become a software billionaire, on the contrary it shows that really only he was positioned to do that at that time in history. He was also saying that 10,000 hours is an enormous commitment, and one that most people would never be capable of following through on because life gets in the way, and that’s what makes these people special.
But if I’m being honest, that wasn’t my initial take away after reading the book.
SteveLehto
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/04/2016 at 11:57 |
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I personally have an issue with much of his stuff. He often gives anecdotes and then uses them to “prove” that something (often a huge movement) happened as a result. I am not sure what he considers himself - a “sociologist”? - but it is more popular than scientific.
I do believe that some of it is quite interesting. I am just not sure how accurate or correct it all is.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> SteveLehto
08/04/2016 at 12:22 |
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Yeah, after a quick trip to Wikipedia, it appears he has no formal training that would’ve prepared him to analyze data as he likes to do in his work. He failed at advertising early on and went into journalism. There are lots of “stretches” to get to his conclusions. Maybe he didn’t hear “correlation does not imply causation” enough times in his schooling...
“I have two parallel things I’m interested in. One is, I’m interested in collecting interesting stories, and the other is I’m interested in collecting interesting research. What I’m looking for is cases where they overlap”.
Enjoyable, interesting, thought-provoking... but accurate? Maybe not. For someone who puts himself forward as some kind of great thinker and who gets a lot of press, that can lead to some problems.
“a minor genius who unwittingly demonstrates the hazards of statistical reasoning”