Spolsky on Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell is… well, he’s someone who writes pop non-fiction books with all the intellectual rigor of your average hippy trying to defend pot legalization on the basis of “hemp biomass” rather than just fessing up that he wants to smoke it.
Joel Spolsky is, on the other hand, an intelligent man; and he expresses some frustrations that have been plaguing me about this crap for some time…
…This review captures what’s been driving me crazy over the last year… an unbelievable proliferation of anecdotes disguised as science, self-professed experts writing about things they actually know nothing about, and amusing stories disguised as metaphors for how the world works…
I liked Tipping Point. It was cute. What it is NOT is science. I’m not sure I’d get behind it as accurate. But it certainly was a fun read. People are going to keep buying this guys books and I suppose good for him. Within the next month I have no doubt I’ll be invoked in bar conversation on this topic several times.
But instead of reading creampuff Gladwell books so that you can pretend you’re smart, why don’t you read something that’s actually challenging and might teach you something?
Like Howard Bloom or Christopher Hitchens.