Interesting and inaccurate
I was listening to a podcast the other day where the speaker proudly challenged tried and true thinking. Through his stories and the data he positioned, he did indeed challenge my way of thinking on the subject. It was as if he turned the prism to an angle I had not considered. Suddenly, the sunlight shone on the floor a new shade of blue.
The risk is in assuming that interesting is novel and that novel is true.
Paul Harvey enlightened us all with ’the rest of the story,’ rounding out thinking and stories about our most common understandings. (I’m a big fan of Mike Rowe’s contemporary version for the same reason). Harvey (and Rowe) go further back than common, dig deeper than most and provide depth beyond the soundbite. Interesting.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote several books along the same ‘prism-shifting’ line. I’ve read them all. They’re really, really interesting. The challenge though, is that they’re often inaccurate. Not all of his insight is busted, but there are long-form inaccuracies. The 10,000-hour rule from Outliers (summarized by Gladwell in this New Yorker article) is one of his more well-known prism-shifters. The rule has become short-hand in popular parlance for long, focused practice. Really interesting, yet research has challenged the ‘rule’ here, here and here. Gladwell has also acknowledged that the rule has become shorthand for something unintended.
To be clear, I don’t know for certain if Gladwell is right or wrong. I’ll let others challenge his argument. Rather, I’m challenging my own assumption that because Gladwell is interesting and novel, he must be right. Whether someone becomes an expert at 10,000 hours or 100,000 hours doesn’t change the fact that a lot of focused practice is needed to be really good. That’s a better lesson for me.
I see the same logical fallacy often in the church. Some teacher expounds on a new understanding of Jesus’ Jewishness or offers a first Century cultural nuance missed to 21st Century Western minds. As a student of the Scriptures, I find it all really interesting, especially when old lessons provide novel insight. For example, I found some insight about the Last Supper that accounted for the culturally appropriate nuances, shifting my mental image away from that provided by da Vinci. Interesting. I wasn’t there so I don’t know if the scholar is accurate, yet I’m quick to admit that I am not a scholar of ancient customs. I wonder what it changes about my understanding of who Jesus is, knowing that he likely sat on the floor and not at a table.
The caution is to the reader and listener, to take the content with a critical eye, looking past the well-spun and novel to the rich and true. This is the work of the critical thinker and of the maturing Christian — study for yourself.