Malcolm Gladwell: The Unheard Story of David and Goliath
Malcolm Gladwell's main arguing point is that there are unseen advantages and disadvantages in the biblical story of David and Goliath. He uses physics to assert that we greatly underestimate the power of the sling, which could have propelled a rock with the equivalent force of a .45 pistol round according to his analysis. He also touches on the weaknesses of Goliath that we don't consider, like that he could have had a tumor on his pituitary gland to cause his massive size and also impair his vision and coordination. He combines these two to state that David may have actually been the superior combatant upon further examination.
Gladwell uses mainly logos in his talk, as he uses hypothetical reasoning to back many of his claims. However, many of his claims aren't backed with much evidence or given the full reasoning behind them, like when he states that David could use his sling to unleash a projectile at over 35meters/sec. He doesn't make any statements about how strong David might have been and even in his book doesn't include the equation he used to find this figure. The second and last method of persuasion he uses is ethos, by saying things such as "within the medical community" without including any specific doctors or quotations to back up his analysis of the situation. He also uses quotes from the bible to add credibility to his findings.
I picked this talk because I had already read his book David and Goliath and thought the analysis he had of the classic story was very interesting. The story itself might not apply much to me itself, but the concept of strengths being weaknesses and vice-versa that he expands on in his book does. For example he described how a high percentage of fortune 500 CEOs have some form of learning disability and the way they got around it made them better at what they do. Furthermore the failures they frequently experienced in their childhood because of them made them more likely to take the risks necessary to succeed. Another example that I thought applied more to me as a senior is that of choosing a college. He compared choosing a college to the impressionist movement in art, concluding that it was better to go to a lower rated school because you would be in the higher percentile and have a better GPA. (This was also backed by a study that said for every 10 points higher the average SAT math score of an accepted applicant was, the likelihood of them dropping a STEM major increase by 2%)
