Short Summary Of Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

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What is the difference between a philosopher and your average joe? Both can think and theorize. But one goes in depth, whereas one barely scratches past the surface. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell is catered to your average joe. A book of theories which would make for great short discussions with coworkers, friends, etc. over lunch or a coffee break. New York Times writer, Michiko Kakutani, provides her review of Malcolm Gladwell's bibliography, criticizing with what many have already. The same problem arises in many of Gladwell’s book. She hones into his lack of in depth analysis, shoddy evidence, and how he generalizes ideas to fit his narrative. What I have noticed and which I agree with Kakutani with, is that he tends …show more content…
The researched how much does practice affect performance. They found that games were the most reactive towards practice with a 26% increase in performance. They also found that the least reactive towards practice was professions (computer programmers, salesmen, etc.) were barely affected with less than a 1% increase in performance. They also found that Music was had a 21% increase in performance when practiced. Ericsson, the man credited for the 10,000 hour rule by Gladwell, has clarified his stance one the 10,000 hour rule. In his journal he talks about how Gladwell misconstrued his words into that elite performers in total had 10,000 hours practice. Ericsson said that 10,000 hours was merely the average and that the best had around 25,000 hours of …show more content…
In this chapter he compares two teenagers. One has an extremely high iq compared to the other. He finds that the teenager with a higher iq did not put as much answers for what he can do with a Brick and Blanket compared to the other student which has a lower IQ. He says this is to prove that once you have passed a certain threshold then IQ does not matter. What I see, is that the teenage with the higher IQ is correct to have a higher IQ. He is able to express most of what the lower IQ teen was suggesting into one statement “building things, throwing”. He is able to generalize and get most of what you can use with a brick with two statements. Whereas the lower IQ subject gave more suggestions but was nowhere near as generalized as the higher IQ subject. He also uses this anecdotal evidence to suggest something about the population which should not be

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