In 2013, a psychology professor reviewing Malcolm Gladwell's latest best-selling book was critical of the author's modus operandi:
He excels at telling just-so stories and cherry-picking science to back them.
That charge had been percolating for a while, but people were suddenly paying more attention to it, including science journalists. After the WSJ review triggered a larger debate on Gladwell, longtime science journalist Paul Raeburn weighed in at MIT's Science Tracker (recently shuttered), a journalism watchdog site that had monitored how science was covered in the media. Raeburn picked up on the mounting criticisms of Gladwell to make some important points, such as this one:
It's the power of narrative that makes it so dangerous: Seductive storytelling robs us of our critical skills.
I've periodically discussed in this space how seductive qualities have helped certain climate change narratives take hold. For example, I've tracked how nearly every major severe weather ...
