Slashdot Mirror
Gladwell's Culture & Air Crashes Analysis Badly Flawed
Koreantoast writes "As a recent Slashdot article showed, interest in Malcolm Gladwell's theory on the impact of culture on airline crashes has come up again following the tragic accident of Asiana Flight 214. Yet how good was Gladwell's analysis of the Korean Air Flight 801 accident which is the basis of his theory? A recent analysis by the popular Ask a Korean! blog shows serious flaws in Gladwell's presentation: ignorance of the power dynamics amongst the flight crew, mischaracterizations of Korean Air's flight accident record (three of the seven deadly incidents characterized as 'accidents' were actually military attacks or terrorism) and manipulative omissions in the pilot transcripts to falsely portray the situation. 'Even under the most kindly light, Gladwell is guilty of reckless and gross negligence. Under a harsher light, Gladwell's work on the connection between culture and plane crashes is a shoddy fraud.' Perhaps Gladwell should have asked a Korean before writing the chapter."
Same happened after the Tenerife crash, with people characterizing one of the crashing captains as an unchallengeable authority and trying to blame the crash on that. And yeah, not true it turns out. Whoda thunk it!?
the "blog's analysis" of Gladwell's book is seriously flawed.
Whether or not traits of South Korean culture caused airplane crashes in the past, the facts in Gladwell's book can't be refuted:
1) South Korean air had a much higher crash rate than other airlines worldwide;
2) They brought in a consultant to train the pilots. This consultant (a) forced them to speak English well (because air traffic controllers speak English worldwide, apparently), and (b) observed rigid command hierarchy, and broke it down so that the co-pilots didn't fear speaking up to the pilots.
3) After the consultant was brought in, South Korean air now has (had?) one of the lowest crash rates in the world.
Who knows what else went on besides bringing in the consultant to train the pilots in step 2, but there is at least a correlation there. Quite frankly I'd be more trusting that Gladwell did some research over some "blog analysis".
Criticism of Gladwell tends to focus on the fact that he is a journalist and not a scientist, and as a result his work is prone to oversimplification. The New Republic called the final chapter of Outliers, "impervious to all forms of critical thinking".[56] Gladwell has also been criticized for his emphasis on anecdotal evidence over research to support his conclusions.[57] Maureen Tkacik and Steven Pinker have challenged the integrity of Gladwell's approach.[58][59] Even while praising Gladwell's attractive writing style and content, Pinker sums up Gladwell as "a minor genius who unwittingly demonstrates the hazards of statistical reasoning," while accusing him of "cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies" in his book Outliers. Referencing a Gladwell reporting mistake, Pinker criticizes his lack of expertise: "I will call this the Igon Value [sic] Problem: when a writer's education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert, he is apt to offer generalizations that are banal, obtuse or flat wrong."[58][n 1] A writer in The Independent accused Gladwell of posing "obvious" insights.[60] The Register has accused Gladwell of making arguments by weak analogy and commented that Gladwell has an "aversion for fact", adding that, "Gladwell has made a career out of handing simple, vacuous truths to people and dressing them up with flowery language and an impressionistic take on the scientific method."[61] Gladwell's approach has been satirized by the online site "The Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator".[62]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Philip Greenspun pretty much systematically took apart the aviation section of Outliers back when it was published:
http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline-safety
The original post is from pprune.org, dipshit. You know, the professional pilots forum. If you knew as much as you think you do, you would have known that.
More on this topic here: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2013/0712/Asiana-flight-214-Was-the-pilot-training-program-to-blame
Or at least his theory about hierarchical cultures and airplane disasters...
I lived in Korea as an English teacher in 2001/2002 and was part of a traveling soccer club...and have traveled extensively elsewhere in Asia.
The idea that the Asia cultural notion of putting respect for a higher class could cause co-pilot's warnings to be delayed or ignored, contributing to the crash, is a sound argument.
For the reasons Gladwell outlines, it is valid. I've seen it personally in many, many everyday situations, from behavior on public transit to my bosses and co-workers at my job:
Just accept it...it's not 'racist'...and it **definitely** isn't just Korean...it goes across Asian culture (rooted in Confuscianism) and the behavior ontology can be seen in Microsoft's management (easy example) evidenced in a different context.
The article nitpicks Gladwell's example by bringing up Red Herring examples of places where Gladwell's analogies break apart. Sure, TFA makes a valid point about the ages of the co-pilots. So what. These are not counterpoints to the original notion of a culture of obedience in the face of error causing bad decisions in crisis.
Here's what TFA is missing and Gladwell didn't explain as well as he could have: Korean hierarchical culture is about who is the 'top dog'...the highest on the pecking order in that context.
It is a multifaceted, modern, complex pecking order, one that subverts and yet maintains the status quo. See, Korea and Asia aren't as hierarchical as they used to be, they have heard of punk rock and 'the 60s' and all that...their cultures digest it and adapt the ideas...Korea especially has a strong Egalitarian streak postwar...but they still have that legacy and it is still a factor, as TFA and Gladwell both agree...
Bottom line, in the cockpit, the pilot is the Big Cheese...he's the boss and reports on those below him.
At home, maybe his wife is the boss...maybe in the break room Chiang Min-Ho holds court...but in the cockpit in an emergency they defer to the pilot.
Both TFA and Gladwell choose poor language to describe a commonly understood concept and confusion ensues...
Thank you Dave Raggett