[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.