Malcolm Gladwell's Blink

[Bull]

Interesting book.

Blink

Starred Review. Best-selling author Gladwell (The Tipping Point) has a dazzling ability to find commonality in disparate fields of study. As he displays again in this entertaining and illuminating look at how we make snap judgments—about people's intentions, the authenticity of a work of art, even military strategy—he can parse for general readers the intricacies of fascinating but little-known fields like professional food tasting (why does Coke taste different from Pepsi?). Gladwell's conclusion, after studying how people make instant decisions in a wide range of fields from psychology to police work, is that we can make better instant judgments by training our mind and senses to focus on the most relevant facts—and that less input (as long as it's the right input) is better than more. Perhaps the most stunning example he gives of this counterintuitive truth is the most expensive war game ever conducted by the Pentagon, in which a wily marine officer, playing "a rogue military commander" in the Persian Gulf and unencumbered by hierarchy, bureaucracy and too much technology, humiliated American forces whose chiefs were bogged down in matrixes, systems for decision making and information overload. But if one sets aside Gladwell's dazzle, some questions and apparent inconsistencies emerge. If doctors are given an algorithm, or formula, in which only four facts are needed to determine if a patient is having a heart attack, is that really educating the doctor's decision-making ability—or is it taking the decision out of the doctor's hands altogether and handing it over to the algorithm? Still, each case study is satisfying, and Gladwell imparts his own evident pleasure in delving into a wide range of fields and seeking an underlying truth.

What really makes this fun to read is his amazing talent for telling stories and weaving together disparate facts to get a narrative going. I enjoyed the war games story and the heart-breaking story about the immigrant who was wrongly shot to death by police in the Bronx.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

It's an interesting book but a little deceptive, IMO. Some of his stories about intuition are about average blokes with a hunch, but many of them are about experts who have deep knowledge about the subject they are puzzled by/interested in.

So it's not clear what kind of intuition he is talking about all the time - hunches, informed guesses, or experts who just know something is going on without putting a finger on it.

His intro story on the statuary, for example, is a neat story, but I don't really see it as an issue of intuition.

It should be read alongside James Surowiecki's "Wisdom of Crowds" for a different take on information processing.

Troy

[Bull]

I thought most of his stories were about experts who may or may not have understood why their first impression was their best impression. His big theme, I thought, was that you didn't need the most information to make the best decision; rather, you needed the best information. I could be wrong, but I thought his point was that experts were able to determine what the crucial bits of information where, but were not always aware they had this skill. For example, the tennis pro who could call a double fault by watching you serve, but didn't understand why. Or the experts in the statue story that you point out.

His intro story on the statuary, for example, is a neat story, but I don't really see it as an issue of intuition.

Interesting point. If not intuition, what would you call it? How do you expalin that the art experts couldn't debunk the scientific experts (who were looking at a much bigger data set) until well after Getty had made its purchase?

I will have to look into Surowiecki's book, but I must confess that I read Gladwell's book more for its effortless style and engaging stories, than anything else.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

His intro story on the statuary, for example, is a neat story, but I don't really see it as an issue of intuition.

Interesting point. If not intuition, what would you call it? How do you expalin that the art experts couldn't debunk the scientific experts (who were looking at a much bigger data set) until well after Getty had made its purchase?

That's the thing. I don't know what to call it either, but it's a very different animal from the wargaming guy or the medical people. The statuary experts' intuition was based on something different from the analysis of the patina - it was based on knowledge of the art. So they were not really in the business of debunking the science, just the history. I don't know. As I read that story, I kept wondering if he was leaving something out. All the antiquities experts that I know can give you a million reasons why something just doesn't seem right and little of it has to do with chemical analysis.

The wargaming guy is just "thinking outside the box". Is this intuition? Or just knowing your opponent? If his opponents had known that he was playing a "rogue", would they have performed better?

I think he really gets into trouble when he suggests that you just need certain pieces of information in order to make a correct judgment, but IIRC (it's been a while), he doesn't give any clues as to what this information might be or how you'll know it when you see it. What is the "best" information? The tennis pro is just using his eyesight and years of self training. But he is an expert. Could he teach me what to look for? Not if he can't explain it. And if he could, it would likely come down to "spend a few years watching tennis and you'll get the hang of it."

Not to mention historic examples of experts and amateurs using their first impressions and being completely wrong. If he were to argue that they weren't using the "best information", he would essentially set up a tautology where "best information" is any information that gives you the right answer.

Lots of great stories, though, and very compelling reading.

Troy

[Bull]

Yes, that's the downside of the book. He can't really explain how you get to the right set of information for any particular task. He is basically trying to get you to put less stock in the huge data set. To his credit, he does give the cautionary tale of the police refusing important information in reaching a quick decision, so I am willing to forgive.

I have always trusted my intuition, child of Star Wars that I am. I think most people who are like me read this book and feel warm and fuzzy because we can't expalin why we know we're right, but we suspect that someone really smart can. :) The cautionary part about not getting the right data is probably what I need to focus on. I suppose the people who are not like me (and distrust making decisions with small amounts of data) might read this book and move a little more toward trusting their intution. Something for everyone.