Friday August 26, 2005

My tipping point I finished reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell last week. Although, I found some of the topics in the book interesting, in general I felt frustrated with what I perceived to be a lack of completeness with some of the author's theories. My tipping point from frustration to flat out irritation came with the following example. In this example the author attempts to reference research by Leda Cosmides into human cognition and the effects of context.

     Suppose four people are drinking in a bar.  One is drinking Coke. One is sixteen. One is drinking beer and one is twenty-five. 
     Given the rule that no one under twenty-one is allowed to drink beer, which of those people's IDs do we have to check to make
     sure the law is being observed? ("The Tipping Point", MG, pg159)

Hmm, well, assuming that the one who is drinking Coke is only drinking coke, then I would have to go with the one who is drinking beer, as they are the only individual drinking beer, whose age is unknown. But, wait..there's more! Lets see what Mr. Gladwell's answer is:

     Now the answer is easy. In fact, I'm sure that almost everyone will get it right: the beer drinker and the sixteen-year-
     old. ("The Tipping Point", MG, pg160)

Wow, don't I feel like an addlepated infant! The sixteen-year-old? Are you sure? But don't we already know how old they are? How would it be useful to check their ID? Wouldn't it be more constructive to check what they are drinking?
*sigh*
If an author doesn't feel like paying attention to details, then it would be nice if they could at least refrain from using statements like "Now the answer is easy" or "almost everyone will get it right". (2005-08-26 10:50:13.0) Permalink Comments [4]