Posting this is kinda unfair, because the debate took place six years ago, and Gladwell announced on his blog this past weekend that he had changed his mind:
In our debate, Adam vigorously defended the Canadian system, and I attacked it. But wait! That was six years ago! I've now changed my mind. I now agree with virtually everything Adam said and disagree with virtually everything I said. In fact, I shudder when I read what I said back then.
<http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/02/gladwell_v_gopn.html>
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Agreed.
No doubt, I should have checked Gladwell's blog first to see if there'd been any modifications but between the idea and the act there falls a long shadow.
I found this bit you quoted very intriguing:
I [Gladwell] woke up one day and realized what much smarter people than me (Adam Gopnik) realized a long time ago, which is that the idea of employer-based health care is just plain stupid--and only our familiarity with it and sheer inertia prevent us...
Which, interestingly, is almost precisely the point Gopnik made six years ago during their debate.
Thus endeth my Gladwell (not so vigorous, really) bashing.
.d.
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When experiments were made with very weak light hitting photomultipliers, the wave theory collapsed[...]This state of confusion was called the 'wave/particle duality' of light.
Richard Feynman