Sometimes the way you conduct science has profound impacts on society as a whole. Malcolm Gladwell says the way we look at who is and who isn’t successful is crucial. He says it’s dangerous to think East Africans are good runners because they have an innate gene that makes them fast. Instead, you have to look at cultural attitudes. More people run in Kenya and Ethiopia than in the U.S. Therefore, those countries produce more successful runners. If you were to think if it in terms of genes, well, that’s the same philosophy that gets people thinking African–Americans aren’t as smart as whites. The real reasons behind success rates in professions like medicine and law have to do with class, not genius. Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book is "Outliers: The Story of Success." He also writes for The New Yorker magazine. Gladwell spoke at Town Hall Seattle on January 17, 2009.
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Design Lessons from Facebook’s 350 Million with Julie Zhuo » UIE Brain Sparks
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Malcolm Gladwell: Who Is Successful? Why?
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Malcolm Gladwell - The Ecology of Success
Now, Malcolm Gladwell is taking on success itself, in a new book called “Outliers.” He’s looking at how society and culture determine who we are, and in particular, what accounts for super-success — for the outsized success of superstars.
It’s not what you may think, he says. Not genes or bootstrap grit. There’s a whole ecology to it, he says. Time Magazine calls his new book “a frontal assault on the great American myth of the self-made man.”
This hour, On Point: Malcolm Gladwell, on the ecology of success.
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/11/malcolm-gladwells-outliers/