Book review: Statistical freaks

Another well-written review from the folks at the Friends of the Library.

“Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell (New book available at Ocean Shores Library).

By Andy Gruse

Outliers in statistics are so far out of the norm they are usually thrown away as data point mistakes. Outliers in this book are great successes or great failures. There are reasons and situations that enable people and events to be so phenomenally successful or unsuccessful compared to other outcomes.

An outlier is outside of normal experience. Pick a quality like being very, very rich or being very, very skillful. How did the Beatles become so proficient that they became one of the greatest rock bands?

With this type of analysis you could ask how Ocean Shores got one of the highest water utility rates in the state with complaints of bad water and over 70 inches of rain a year. 

This sounds all very technical but it’s not. The author explains very clearly the details behind the phenomenally best and the exceedingly worst of situations. The most successful people in any endeavor are not necessarily geniuses but they are smart. For success to flourish the proper environment analogous to good soil, water and sun must exist. Without a fertile environment even a genius can fail. Approximately 10,000 hours or ten years of practice is necessary to become the best of the best.

This book analyzes and gives examples how such things like this occur, the uncommon results. It is very clearly written without the normal muddiness of expert or consultant discourses. Explanations appeal to common sense. Examples analyzed include: the prowess of professional Canadian Hockey players, Bill Gates’ fortune, New York take over lawyers, airplane crashes and many other extraordinary experiences.

Why were Korean airlines crashing airplanes at an outlier rate far greater than other airlines?  Why did a Colombian Airliner crash over New York city by running out of gas? These questions have highly plausible answers after objectively looking at the details of the cultures involved and their interrelationships. 

The case of why no one has ever heard of the world’s smartest man is interesting. He lacks the type of intelligence children gain by being brought up in non poor normal families with responsible parents. He did not have parents that could have made it possible for him to get in his 10,000 hours of practice. Bill Gates and Mozart did.

Ultra success or failure does not happen because of blind luck. There are reasons. The key for a normally talented person is to be at the right place at the right time prepared with 10,000 hours of practice. 

In addition to place and time communication is crucial. Unclear or equivocating communications with the Air Traffic Controller was the cause of the Colombian Air Liner crash in New York. The fuel ran out. 

Hyping the positive and ignoring the negative with ignorance or negligence is a good way to assure disaster and bring into being what could be called a negative outlier.

Andy Gruse is a member of the Friends of the Library, www.osgov.com/library.html