Malcolm Gladwell on trial by jury

More Malcolm: A reader writes:

I saw Malcolm Gladwell on NY1, the local cable station in NYC. He continued the contradictions you identified, and then went on to make the loopy assertion that criminal defendants, because of racial prejudice, should testify from behind a screen --- or not at all, and respond to questions by email.

Great idea! Malcolm, who never met two contradictory ideas he didn't like, also writes at length in Blink about how people have an innate talent for recognizing whether somebody is telling the truth or not from their facial expressions. How exactly is the jury supposed to exercise their "rapid cognition" ability via email? Hmmhmmhm ... do you think if the racial makeup of defendants was different, Malcolm would be espousing the opposite view?

Look, the reason I hammer Malcolm Gladwell and Jared Diamond so hard is because they aren't invincibly ignorant. They are even a little bit courageous. They are people who like to prance up to the precipice of the truth and then dash away. They've made themselves rich by constructing politically correct rationales for stupider people to believe.