{"id":2386,"date":"2013-10-16T11:06:21","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T17:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=2386"},"modified":"2013-10-16T12:45:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T18:45:44","slug":"the-controversy-over-malcolm-gladwells-new-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2013\/10\/the-controversy-over-malcolm-gladwells-new-book.html","title":{"rendered":"The Controversy Over Malcolm Gladwell’s New Book"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Malcolm Gladwell\u2019s new Book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants<\/em><\/a> is at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller list for non-fiction. It\u2019s strange that Gladwell comes in at number two behind Bill O\u2019Reilly\u2019s Killing Jesus<\/em>. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m all that comfortable with either of those figures shaping the future of religious thought\u2026 nevertheless.<\/p>\n

Gladwell\u2019s writing has been somewhat influential in ministry circles. His narrative approach is highly adaptable and appealing especially to those of us who like to traffic in stories. He\u2019s written some huge books \u2013 Outliers<\/em>, The Tipping Point<\/em>, and Blink<\/em> to name just a few, and has an enormous following among church and ministry leaders, and recently headlined at the Catalyst leadership conference.<\/p>\n

Gladwell also has his fair share of detractors. Christopher Chabris recently wrote a scathing indictment<\/a> of Gladwell\u2019s entire corpus for Slate<\/em>. After cataloging the myriad ways in which one can approach Gladwell\u2019s writing (is it entertainment? Is it a popular version of hard social sciences?) Chabris\u2019 main criticism is that Gladwell admits that he tells the story first, and uses data to support that story. Chabris says that Gladwell ends up distorting the data, causing it to fit the narrative he\u2019s already constructed. Never mind that it\u2019s no surprise that all human beings tend to select data that supports the narratives to which we have already subscribed, the heart of Chabris\u2019 critique is that he doesn\u2019t like the data. I won\u2019t rehearse his whole argument; you can read it for yourself.<\/p>\n

Chabris seems to have a serious burr under his saddle. It seems clear that at least part of the reason for this is that he co-authored a book called The Invisible Gorilla: Why Our Intuitions Deceive Us<\/em>, which argues exactly the opposite of what Gladwell argues in his book Blink.<\/em>\u00a0Anyone want to guess which one was the bigger selling book? Perhaps that is why some say Chabris is motivated by professional jealousy, but it looks to me like they have two different approaches to a similar issue. You can even say that it comes down to the long held rivalry between Psychology (Chabris\u2019 field), and sociology (where Gladwell mines for data). Animals who are closest on the food chain are always the most bitter enemies.<\/p>\n

Gladwell wrote a response<\/a> to Chabris\u2019 article and it appeared in Slate as well. Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

The first striking thing about all three of Chabris\u2019 reviews of\u00a0David and Goliath<\/em>\u00a0is how much attention he pays to a study that I mention at the beginning of my chapter on dyslexia. That part of the book is concerned with the notion of \u201cdesirable difficulty,\u201d a term that I think is a wonderful metaphor for the ways in which some dyslexics have adapted to their disability. To illustrate the metaphor, I spent two pages describing a paper published by Adam Alter and Daniel Oppenheimer a few years ago in the\u00a0Journal of Experimental Psychology<\/em>. Chabris does not like this study. He thinks it involved too few subjects and that its findings were not replicated by a subsequent study. Alter and Oppenheimer disagree. They say that the version of desirable difficulty that they explore has been confirmed on numerous other occasions. This is the kind of intramural argument about the nature and value of evidence that social scientists have all the time. A reasonable version of Chabris\u2019 position might look something like this: \u201cIn illustrating the metaphor of desirable difficulty, Gladwell makes reference to a peer-reviewed study that I\u2014Christopher Chabris\u2014do not find convincing. I believe Gladwell would have been better off choosing a different study to make his point.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

But Chabris is in no mood to be reasonable. Instead, he argues that this single instance of a study mentioned in passing to illustrate a metaphor in a chapter about something else entirely (dyslexia!) is indicative of something gravely wrong with the Gladwell intellectual project. I am guilty, he writes, of \u201cvirtual malpractice.\u201dMalpractice!<\/em>\u00a0Where on earth did that word come from? I clearly drive Chabris crazy. Incidentally, around the same time I ran across Chabris\u2019 piece in\u00a0Slate<\/em><\/strong>, I came across another article on an academic blog that describes\u2014in almost identically overheated language\u2014the enormous consequences of my transgressions around things like quoting articles from the\u00a0Journal of Experimental Psychology<\/em>. \u201cGladwell is a bullshitter<\/a>,\u201d the blog post concludes. It was written by Michelle Meyer\u2014who informs us in a footnote that she is Chabris\u2019 wife. I clearly drive her crazy, too. These are not tranquil times in the Meyer-Chabris household.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

What is most interesting me is that this is turning out to be a case of life imitating literature, only Gladwell is the Goliath. Chablis & Co. are trying to take down the giant. If that\u2019s not good dramatic irony I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n

The one thing I think Chabris misses that Gladwell seems to understand is the power of story. Story is always more powerful than data. Story funds an imagination for what might be, not merely a description of what is. As the father of a dyslexic, I know the power of stories that speak of \u201cdesirable difficulty\u201d and how adapting through struggle can make us stronger in important ways. I tell these stories to my son all the time (and to myself). I also think it\u2019s unfair to say that Gladwell\u2019s approach is somehow prescriptive. I\u2019ve read nearly all of his stuff, and it functions much more like narrative wisdom literature than hard sociology or psychological data. I\u2019m never confused nor I feel deceived about what he\u2019s doing. In any book of this type it\u2019s easy to lean on a few examples and strain the load they bear. I have to say that I\u2019m really thankful to Gladwell for his writing, and I think I know how to give it appropriate weight. How about you guys?<\/p>\n

Here are a few more critical articles:<\/p>\n

USA Today<\/a><\/p>\n

Another Slate Article<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malcolm Gladwell\u2019s new Book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants is at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller list for non-fiction. It\u2019s strange that Gladwell comes in at number two behind Bill O\u2019Reilly\u2019s Killing Jesus. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m all that comfortable with either of those figures shaping the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[794,793,795],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-david-and-goliath","tag-malcolm-gladwell","tag-michael-chabris"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Controversy Over Malcolm Gladwell's New Book<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Malcolm Gladwell's new Book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants is at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller list for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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