Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Thoughts about ...

... Book reviewing.

The great Joseph Epstein has this to say about Malcolm Gladwell's methodology as follows:
The Gladwellian method is by now well established, if not formulaic. He takes a received opinion--the superiority of young Chinese at mathematics, say--sets out the conventional wisdom on the subject, and then refutes this wisdom with the aid of anecdotes backed up by one or another social-scientific study. Gladwell does social science--second-hand social science, really--with a twist: The twist is that he uses it inevitably to supply happy endings. Attend to his instruction and you, too, can spot trends, think more clearly under pressure, and now, with Outliers, increase your chances to achieve an impressive success.
More here.

No comments:

Post a Comment