tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13617569.post4868695224807362185..comments2024-03-27T02:13:58.088-07:00Comments on Integral Options Cafe: Gladwell Responds to Pinker's Review of His New Bookwilliam harrymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06981478282688361274noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13617569.post-42562890289127375792009-11-18T16:16:33.820-07:002009-11-18T16:16:33.820-07:00Another good review.
"Pinker coins a term fo...Another good review.<br /><br />"Pinker coins a term for the problem with Gladwell’s latest book and his work more generally. Pinker’s term: “The Igon Value Problem” is a clever play on the Eigenvalue Problem in mathematics. You see, Gladwell apparently quotes someone referring to an “igon value.” This is clearly a concept he never dealt with himself even though it is a ubiquitous tool in the statistics and decision science about which Gladwell is frequently so critical. According to Pinker, the Igon Value Problem occurs “when a writer’s education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert,” leading him or her to offering “generalizations that are banal, obtuse or flat wrong.” In other words, the Igon Value Problem is one of dilettantism. Now, this is clearly a constant concern for any science writer, who has the unenviable task of rendering extremely complex and frequently quite technical information down to something that is simultaneously accurate, understandable, and interesting. However, when the bread and butter of one’s work involves criticizing scientific orthodoxy, it seems like one needs to be extremely vigilant to get the scientific orthodoxy right.<br /><br />Pinker raises the extremely important point that the decisions we make using the formal tools of decision science (and cognate fields) represent solutions to the inevitable trade-offs between information and cost. This cost can take the form of financial cost, time spent on the problem, or computational resources, to name a few." <br /><br />http://monkeysuncle.stanford.edu/?p=541Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com