[credo]

I know that Malcolm Gladwell comes in for pretty harsh criticism in HN (and that also applies to comments that might be supportive of Gladwell :)

However, I think it is worth pointing out that the "rice theory" in the virginia.edu post isn't particularly new.

In 'Outliers' (which came out six years ago) Gladwell writes extensively about the "rice theory" (and Gladwell may have relied on prior research by other folks)

He writes about rice farmers in southern China who value hard work, co-operation with each other, planning etc and attributes that to the "rice theory"

Gladwell also contrasts these rice farmers with European farmers. Chinese farmers typically were entrepreneurial, but European peasants were generally low-paid slaves/workers of some aristocratic landlord.

He also contrasts them with French farmers who did virtually nothing in winter, Russians who came up with proverbs like "If God doesn't bring it, the earth will not give it" etc.

[fatjokes]

I'm certainly not a fan of Gladwell but it was never because he was wrong, but because his arguments are more of a string of cherry-picked anecdotes than rigorous studies backed by evidence and sound statistics. Granted, the former makes for a smoother read, but it deceives (intentionally or not) a lot of the public because it sounds so darn smart!