Why I don't trust popular science books.

I've always been wary of the attempt to popularize science--while it's a worthy endeavor to try and make dense concepts more accessible, much tends to be lost in the translation. These types of efforts can be especially misleading with the social sciences, where anecdotes and statistics can combine to create an argument that has face validity to most people.

Malcolm Gladwell is a sterling example of how things can go wrong, as shown in this review of his latest book. It makes for exciting reading; unfortunately, the science doesn't stand up to scrutiny at times.