A review of “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell
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Written by Thomas Niccum
If you’re interested in data and data analysis you have probably read Malcom Gladwell’s previous works Blink and The Tipping Point. Both were rich in interesting data and approaches to analyze that data for meaning. Gladwell recently published a third volume, Outliers, which has even more of his trademark analysis of situations that initially seem obvious, but where a bit of data sleuthing turns up some incredible information. The book is filled with many examples of our common beliefs turned upside down by basic data analysis.
For example, the very first problem considered in the book is the Canadian Junior hockey league. A statistician noted a peculiar trend. Nearly all the players in the league’s championship game were born in January, February or March. This made no sense as talent isn’t usually tied to birth month. That got him thinking and the results of his data exploration are pretty astonishing. The implications for how we think about “talent” and “genius” reverberate through the book with example after example of apparent genius being shown to be mostly about hard work, rather than inborn traits.
I highly recommend the book for its unique approach to both the subject of talent and genius, and the interesting uses of data analysis to prove its points. We’ve placed it our Lancet Online BI Bookstore in the General Interest section: www.lancetsoftware.com/bookstore
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