Gladwell renews his War on Intelligence
12/02/2009
A+
|
a-
Print Friendly and PDF
As many have pointed out, Malcolm Gladwell stuck to his guns over his obviously false assertion that there's "no connection" between draft rank and NFL quarterback performance in his attack on Steven Pinker because that was just a proxy for IQ and race. Now, Gladwell goes on the attack against Pinker on IQ with exactly what you'd expect: the usual point and sputter about Six Degrees of the Pioneer Fund and all of that:
Pinker, Round Two

Still, you've got to admit that Gladwell has a point: if people can make make more accurate than random predictions about which college quarterbacks will be better than other college quarterbacks, then they can make predictions about more politically incorrect things, too. Thus, Gladwell wages relentless war upon predictions, quantitative thinking, science, indeed, upon that ultimate evil: knowledge itself.

Print Friendly and PDF