[ryanwhitney]

Reminded my of this, from Gladwell's Outliers:

"The way you were raised, namely with wealthy or less fortunate parents, also plays a role. Gladwell explains that when wealthy parents drive their children to the doctor, they tell their children things like, “Johnny, now if you have any questions, be sure to ask the doctor. This is your opportunity to talk to him about any health problems you’re having….” And so on.

In contrast, the children of poor parents may feel less entitled to this same questioning. Instead, they accept what the doctor tells them straight out, without surfacing concerns or criticisms. Gladwell then uses Chris Langan, a genius with a 195 IQ who wasn’t able to succeed in college, as an example. Langan failed to get a PhD (his goal) not because he lacked intelligence, but because he had a mentality to passively accept the conditions and limitations others imposed on him. Langan ended up dropping out of college because he couldn’t convince his teachers to accommodate a simple change in his schedule (a change he needed because his truck broke and he could no longer get to campus early in the morning)."

[dkarl]

I have a friend who is a doctor and works two weekends a month at a clinic in a poor area. (I think it's so poor that the clinic is closed on the weekends when he's not there.) Part of his job is having the right demeanor that people will trust him and actually follow his advice. That means projecting authority, the old-fashioned confidence and slightly superior air that people probably expected from a doctor in the 19th century. He interacts differently with educated patients; they ask him all kinds of things, and he doesn't pretend to be any more wise or knowledgeable than his training makes him. The less educated ones are likely to say nothing, nod respectfully, and then possibly not follow his advice at all if he didn't sufficiently impress them. (For example, they might drive ten minutes across the border into Mexico, buy three days' worth of antibiotics, and not interact with a doctor again until their condition gets much worse.)

I can only imagine the awkwardness when he mistakes one kind of patient for the other.

[Drbble]

Gladwell's story is completely made up though. Rich kids are more obedient due to their high class structured environment, whereas as poor kids live in a dog eat dog world where they learn fast to fight for survival.

Sociology is fun, any just-so story becomes social science. even.

[disgruntledphd2]

Please don't confuse Gladwell with a social scientist. Its somewhat like confusing Bob the Java book writer with James Gosling. I agree that a lot of social science is garbage, but there are many smart people studying it, and its a much harder area to keep your everyday opinions from affecting.

[groby_b]

> Gladwell's story is completely made up though

That seems to be a tautology these days ;)

[achompas]

"The way you were raised, namely with wealthy or less fortunate parents, also plays a role. Gladwell explains that when wealthy parents drive their children to the doctor, they tell their children things like, “Johnny, now if you have any questions, be sure to ask the doctor. This is your opportunity to talk to him about any health problems you’re having….” And so on.

Disappointed that, in a thread about asking questions, no one has asked whether this Gladwell anecdote generalizes (especially since Gladwell is king of "anecdote == universal fact.")

Can anyone comment on this quote?

[rhizome]

I wouldn't put Gladwell down that much, he's simply a contemporary writer of fairy tales to me. Aesoplike, they have lessons and histories that we can potentially relate to, while not attempting to be the last word. Does Gladwell's writing need to be any more than a nudge in whatever direction the reader is already inclined?

That said, I never liked that passage. There are passive and active parents in all walks of life, but I don't think the economics are the point of the quote as much as an admonishment to take a bit more control.

[redschell]

Slightly off-topic, but I'm curious to hear more of what HN thinks about Gladwell. Some writers and scientists I respect, perhaps most notably Steven Pinker, have been vocally opposed to the "shoddy scholarship" of Gladwell's work, while others, including many bloggers I've encountered here, have quoted him with great enthusiasm (I believe Peter Norvig references his "10,000 hours to expertise" figure from Outliers in his famous essay on becoming a programmer in 10 years).

[celoyd]

I don’t think of myself as the HN mainstream, but probably few do.

I synthesize these positions on Gladwell.

#1, he’s not a scientist and not a science journalist. He doesn’t apply any rigor to speak of: at best, he’s telling suggestive and insightful stories, not proving or really getting to the bottom of anything. He leaves out huge amounts of important information, especially when it would get in the way of making a catchy point. This is extremely irritating when it’s implied – usually by his readers, not by him – that he’s doing something more.

But #2, he’s good at what he does. If you approach it as engaging stories that highlight quirky research, it’s entertaining and thought-provoking. I’ve learned very little from Gladwell per se, but I’ve learned a lot from following up on the actual science that he refers to. That’s valuable.

So I think it’s fair to say that Gladwell’s scholarship is shoddy, and his writing is shallow and over-popularized and mostly anecdotal. But if you take him as a good storyteller rather than a bad scientist, it can still be worth reading.

If you want to like Gladwell but don’t, you might prefer John McPhee. He’s a little more on the hard journalism side of the science popularizer spectrum.

[ezy]

He's a pop science writer who does a bit of synthesis. He has interesting ideas -- but they aren't super well substantiated. I've always viewed his works as launching points for further work or ideas to consider, but not really definitive. Most writers who write "accessible" science prose are like this, unless they have written some inaccessible work in papers first and are just trying to explain things to the layman. You take it all with a grain of salt.

With that in mind, I take two concrete appraoches to Gladwell's work. Unless I feel like reading a story, I skip the anecdotes -- this shortens most of his books to about a chapter's worth. :-)

And if I do hit upon an important point I might want to incorporate into my thinking, I look up the references to see how substantiated it really is.

[iskander]

I hold his writing to a non-academic standard and generally enjoy it. I did, however, get very angry watching him give a lecture. He seemed so enamored with weaving a vague but sexy story that I don't think even he believed his own thesis. His style just didn't seem honest!

[justincormack]

I don't believe 10000 hours is original to Gladwell, although he did popularize it.

[Lambent_Cactus]

Which is to say, asking questions isn't so much a marker of intelligence so much as of privilege. More than any particular subject matter, that's what Harvard is instructing its students in.