Counter-intuitive reading: "David and Goliath" by Malcolm Gladwell

Here we go again. Why do I keep buying books by Malcolm Gladwell? They always leave me a little enlightened and rather more irritated. It always goes pretty much the same way: starting with a remarkable counter-intuitive story, then the central insight of the book, explaining why the counter-intuitive makes perfect sense, followed by anecdote upon anecdote broadly reinforcing the idea.

The trick should be either to read the first chapter and leave it there, or to read an article somewhere summing up the argument. What adds self-inflicted insult to injury in this case is that I did have that summary before I bought this book, in the form of an item on the excellent TED Radio Hour podcast I heard in which Gladwell explained his take on the David and Goliath story. And I still bought the book! It was prominently displayed and well marketed in a bookshop, and, yes, the TED talk had indeed made me eager for more. Except, of course, you don't really get more. or much more at any rate.

So what's the interesting idea at the heart of this book?

The subtitle actually gets you quite a long way. In full, the book is titled David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants. The central idea is that what we would normally consider an advantage: e.g. being big and strong, getting into the best possible university, being in a small class, having the full might of the state at your disposal, is not necessarily an advantage at all. Conversely, what we might consider a disadvantage: e.g. being small and weak, being dyslexic, having no tall players in your basketball team, belonging to a persecuted minority, can perversely be an advantage. 

Through anecdote and, in some cases, quite a lot of statistics, Gladwell shows how the counterintuitive switching of advantage and disadvantage in his anecdotes actually makes a great deal of sense and can be explained in the most rational terms. 

The sticking point for me is that, while a disadvantage can indeed be an advantage, it remains both true and obvious that in a great many other cases the disadvantage is just that: a disadvantage. For every child with dyslexia who becomes a world famous business leader (Gladwell cites several), not every dyslexic youngster will benefit from his or her condition. Nor indeed would any of the dyslexics Gladwell talks to wish the condition on their own children. 

For me the post interesting part of the book is the bit where there is a more viable basis for a generalisation, the two chapters dealing with education. In the first of these, Gladwell makes the point that small class sizes are not a straightforwardly good thing, and that efforts to make classes smaller can, beyond a certain point somewhere in the mid to high teens, work counterproductively. It takes little effort to realise this makes perfect sense, and having myself seen how the dynamics of an excessively small class (17) can work, I need little convincing. 

The second education chapter is rather more challenging to my middle class prejudices. In this, with quite a lot of statistical evidence in support, Gladwell maintains that it is not necessarily a good idea for a student to aim as high as possible in terms of university entrance. Crudely put, it is better to be a star student in a moderately-placed university, than an average one in a top university. Big fish in little ponds do better than little fish in big ponds. (Though big fish in big ponds do best of all, of course.) This is not only a question of self-esteem and self-confidence, but is borne out not only by outcomes in terms of individuals ultimately pursuing the careers they wished for, but also in terms of productiveness within the chosen discipline. Here Gladwell's stats show that a proportionately much higher number of science intakes in so-called "minor" colleges and universities go on to publish peer-reviewed research than is the case of prestigious, Ivy League universities. 

I realise I have now undermined my initial contention about needing to read the first chapter only (the education ones are 2 and 3), but, we're in the counterintuitive business here, right?

Indeed, I'm not recommending against these books - how could I? I keep coming back for more - but just warning against a certain sense of frustration and diminishing returns they bring. There are insights and great ideas, it's highly readable, but it's sometimes just a bit "lite", if you see what I mean.

Malcolm Gladwell