Sloppy evidence is far more damaging than no evidence.  The fact that this author even brings up Gladwell caused me to stop reading.  In light of Greenspun's argument that domestic pilots have orders of magnitude more experience, Gladwell's argument is worthless at <i>best</i>.  But clearly, Gladwell's argument is <i>worse</i> than worthless, because now people are using it as anecdotal evidence in other realms.  Even worse, the OP picked this anecdote because it is the same as his own hypothesis.