We spent an hour or two flipping through Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, but cannot bring outselves to actually read the thing. Although the book is old, its continued popularity as both a text and a meme have tipped us into writing the follow.

Based on study of the index and citations as well as a random sampling of excerpts, we have concluded that Gladwell is completely ignorant of the significant literature on equilibria from Systems Theory, Economics, Dynamical Systems, Physics, Finance, etc. As we should have anticipated, a journalist would be only exposed to, capable of understanding, and interested in the most human of “sciences”: Sociology, Social Psychology, Epidemiology, Marketing, Criminology, Child Psychology, etc.

In order to avoid theory, the book lays out its theory in a series of self-confirming case studies. This approach necessitates the appropriation of suitable cases as confirmed by Gladwell’s uncritical acceptance of the Broken Windows Theory of Criminology. More seriously, readers are apparently lead to apply the same methodology, when they only have the most veiled exposure to the underlying rigorous scientific theory. Perhaps the book-meme itself and its effects can be a case study in some future pop or serious presentation.