Burden of Proof | Revisionist History | Malcolm Gladwell

“He called to wish me ‘Happy Birthday.’ Then he said, ‘I’m failing everything.’”
In 2013, Malcolm gave a talk at the University of Pennsylvania on the subject of proof. How much evidence do we need of the harmfulness of some behavior, before we act? The lecture was about the long-ago fight over miner’s asthma - and about the unexpected death of a Penn student named Owen Thomas. Revisionist History returns to the question at the heart of the the talk, with a visit to Owen Thomas’s family.
Season 3 (2018)
#podcast #revisionisthistory #malcolmgladwell
ABOUT REVISIONIST HISTORY
Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every podcast episode re-examines something from the past - an event, a person, an idea, even a song - and asks whether we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.
ABOUT MALCOLM GLADWELL
Malcolm Gladwell is president and co-founder of Pushkin Industries. He is a journalist, a speaker, and the author of six New York Times bestsellers including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and Talking to Strangers. He has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1996. He is a trustee of the Surgo Foundation and currently serves on the board of the RAND Corporation.
ABOUT PUSHKIN INDUSTRIES
Pushkin Industries is an audio production company dedicated to creating premium content in a collaborative environment. Co-founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg in 2018, Pushkin has launched seven new shows into the top 10 on Apple Podcasts (Against the Rules, The Happiness Lab, Solvable, Cautionary Tales, Deep Cover, The Last Archive, and Lost Hills), in addition to producing the hugely successful Revisionist History. Pushkin’s growing audiobook catalogue includes includes the bestselling biography “Fauci,” by Michael Specter, “Hasta La Vista, America,” Kurt Andersen’s parody Trump farewell speech performed by Alec Baldwin, "Takeover" by Noah Feldman, and “Talking to Strangers,” from Pushkin co-founder Malcolm Gladwell. Pushkin is dedicated to producing audio in any format that challenges listeners and inspires curiosity and joy.
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[@5kids1goldfish]

My oldest boy is 32, and I never let my kids play footballl because it always seemed too violent. I noticed years ago when reports started surfacing about the brain injuries!!! It scares me that people let their kids play football... I'm not overly cautious with my kids but the danger always seemed clear to me with football.

[@johnnywapstra9973]

Another profound piece of work Mr Gladwell. What you explore here I see as relevant to many sectors. Yesterday I saw a news article about a young mother who worked in admin for a quarry, diagnosed with silicosis. To demand proof of too high a standard speaks of a willingness to inflict injury on others.

[@Grateful999]

I didn’t allow my oldest son to play high school football due to concussion concerns. Hearing this a decade later makes me feel relieved I listened to my mother’s intuition. Thank you for this podcast. 🙏

[@dosesandmimoses]

Thank you for investigating a really difficult topic.. at the very least- individuals and parents can make informed choices.

[@victoriapearce6145]

So glad my son, who played soccer, football and rugby quit in grade 12 to focus on his studies

[@bthomson]

I always think MG is a genius but I really have to concentrate on these video/ pods and sometimes listen twice to cement my understanding. Don't mind the time and effort though - always worth it!🎖🏆🏅🎯

[@pamgallagher9778]

I asked my son to please not let his beautiful, brilliant 3 year old son EVER play football! Please protect his brain.....❤

[@pavanatanaya]

Mamas dont let your babies grow up to do contact sport.

[@cherylcarlson3315]

This issue exists for those with triple sero negative myasthenia gravis!! Moral injury from MD appointments, being told mestinon is for comfort while lack of diagnosis means death sentence at the hands of MD who treats only problem list. Please read Chloe Adkins book ' my imaginary illness '. When you don't count the deaths,the disabled,there is no problem from their POV. From the suffering disabled is something quite different

[@PhilipLeitch]

I'm also interested in the inherent harm of the normalisation of competition. Why is being successful at sports seen as inherently positive when the values it promotes aren't demonstrated as valuable. That it normalises a "win-lose" approach to life (you are either a winner or a loser). That's neither positive nor a productive value. We hear a positive as "teamwork" and yet its "our team against 'their team'", which seems a particularly blinkered view of teamwork. We talk about strategy and skills, and yet the individual athlete has a short career and painful life-long injuries, meanwhile the skills and strategies have as much meaning in the real world as wine tastings skills have in the workplace. Why does a world class institution of education have a significant arm focused on sports at all? That feels like going to a library and seeing sprint lanes. Is a university about developing well rounded adults, and sports has been demonstrated to be part of that? If so - why aren't they mandatory? If not - what even is the role of sports in an otherwise academic environment. I'd strongly argue that there should be a separation of sports training institutions and academic institutions. I'd also argue that the promotion of the values taught by sports is at best unjustified and at worst harmful. And yet everything I've claimed requires a burden of proof - luckily for me the burden is on the people making the positive claim (that sports values are good) and not on the person who says "I don't believe you because you have failed to meet your burden of proof."

[@L33PL4Y]

Brilliant comment.

[@rogerpatry5167]

This covers football. The link between repetitive head trauma and CTE is clear. Football is basically confined to 2 countries: CANADA and USA. But what about other sports that are more global and have many more young people playing them: Soccer and hockey. Are there many concussions in high level competitive skiing? Wouldn’t a 2nd step after exposing the unhealthiness of football be correlating brain trauma to other sports? Does that correlation exist today?

[@Lawofimprobability]

There is a clear correlation with hockey and boxing.

[@willmpet]

See the TEDx 27:01 talk by Kim Gorgens!

[@willmpet]

American football combines two of the most nasty aspects of American Society, needless violence and committee meetings! Are we destroying many of our own because we love football? Are we mad?

[@benhills1340]

Hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance?

[@cherylcarlson3315]

So timely as dealing with sero negative Myasthenia gravis...no lab test, no disease!! Except there is illness, disability that follows MG and responds to same treatments but neurologists who can parrot that 10% of MG is sero negative will fail to identify a sero negative patient. such a life threatening conundrum

[@claracalifornia]

Are empathy, love, and respect prevented on buprenorphine? Just curious. Been noticing a pattern.

[@MnMcancook]

To a machine such as American football, a few lives lost is an acceptable price for those families to pay in order to keep the billions of dollars flowing. We as human beings need to start realizing what we are promoting when we spend our money with companies and begin to root out businesses that do not have our best interests in mind. Colleges in general are proving to be a bad business, so there is a start.

[@barryrempp1261]

Sad to say... Society won't stop football for the same reason we are so slow to respond to climate change -- money. Too many poweful monied interests are deeply invested in the statu quo. Life tomorrow is less important than cash today.

[@Edo9River]

Malcolm, you are my type of guy. But… don’t. People talk to you about the perception of risk? What is are the stats on risk of playing football?

[@Matt12191998]

Tell the same story again, but with the subjuct being alcohol or sugar. The problems caused aren't even close. Society, people, self justiify what we like.

[@Thatguyjay4]

More like Malcolm Buzzkill

[@Redmenace96]

MG is way overstating the statistics and the evidence. He admits, right in the middle that they are only choosing brains that the family want to submit. Also, he doesn't put in any statistics of suicide for males in that age group for context. He tells a horror story, full of a family's pain, and wants the U. of Pennsylvania to cease their football program? Implying football should be banned?? He doesn't reach the burden of proof for this observer.

[@MnMcancook]

The proof you are wanting wouldn't matter so much to you if one of those young men were your son. Instead, you would probably be leading the march to bring awareness to this issue and perhaps stop football yourself. Most of us are only a simple tragedy away from becoming some form of activists.

[@davidbamford9284]

Anyone that covers his face this way is considered a lonely and confused person and he loves his self

[@freerovingbovine]

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6973077/ Dose-response doesn't take decades to determine causality.