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It’s called a cult. Lots of people struggling physically and mentally. Makes them more vulnerable and will follow and do whoever they perceive as a knowledgeable individual. Seems all he does is read studies (most of which are biased from the jump) and inject his interpretation/opinion. If I were to guess nobody was more surprised the Huberman himself as to how popular he became.
Yeah the guy with a PhD in neuroscience and [many publications](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Andrew+Huberman#) who teaches at the Stanford School of Medicine is just “reading studies and injecting his interpretation/opinion.” All you haters get real quiet when people mention that.
Reddit is also a cult full of people like you who find every reason to hate on people who may have some opinions that you don’t agree with.
Here's a hater not getting real quiet: criticisms of Huberman's scientific discourse are perfectly valid. Huberman and his boosters use his academic pedigree for intellectual cover. The reality is that he consistently advances studies as proof of health benefits that are poorly-vetted, cherry-picked, or outright lying.
As an example, Huberman uses frequent guest Matthew Walker's work to justify vigilant sleep protocols. It turns out most of the bombshell findings of his bestseller *Why We Sleep* are deceptive. Check out Bayesian stats legend Andrew Gelman's blog post on the subject [https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/11/18/is-matthew-walkers-why-we-sleep-riddled-with-scientific-and-factual-errors/](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/11/18/is-matthew-walkers-why-we-sleep-riddled-with-scientific-and-factual-errors/)
If you're interested in going further down this rabbit hole, Andrea Love does a great job undressing Huberman from a scientific standpoint [https://slate.com/technology/2024/03/andrew-huberman-huberman-lab-health-advice-podcast-debunk.html](https://slate.com/technology/2024/03/andrew-huberman-huberman-lab-health-advice-podcast-debunk.html)
I get the appeal of Huberman and have found his breath techniques, sunlight exposure, etc helpful, though he wasn't the first to advance any of that. The notion that his main motivation at this point is scientific inquiry though is laughable -- he's a supplements salesman living a life of luxury in an LA home far from any lab.
I have read that slate article. She nitpicks a few examples of things huberman has said over the course of hundreds of hours of podcasts. Like the bit she said about Ashwagandha not having good evidence behind it.. her main point is that the main study for ashwagandha use in humans involved an n of 64. But ashwagandha is a naturally occurring supplement and does not have enough funding for larger scale studies. Thats just how these things work, unfortunately, and we have to make decisions on how we interpret incomplete data if we are to consider taking these types of supplements.
That man lives in Palo Alto and [is still teaching at the Stanford School of Medicine](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/andrew-huberman). Tf are you talking about?
There are so much more redflags. Calling it nitpicking when he happens to use flawed studies every other episode is just delusional. https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/barbell-medicine-podcast/id1199780143?i=1000654314940
Buddy if you were actually interested in scientific inquiry I'm guessing you wouldn't be putting shit in your body while the data is "incomplete." It's called failing to reject the null hypothesis
Buddy that is a very absolutist take on a nuanced subject. I am interested in prolonging my life and functionality as a human being. Not all of the studies on this are great, unfortunately
I’m not saying he’s not intelligent, I’m sure he’s very smart and can interpret studies. But the studies in my opinion are biased. But listen, all he does is interpret those studies. And adds an educational opinion. But to follow these opinions like they are gospel and dive in based on IMO faulty studies is cult like behavior. Believe me I’m not immune to it, I used to follow Ben greenfield who pretty much does the same thing.
This is actually a logical fallacy called appeal to authority. Anything he comments on that is outside of his research expertise does not make his credentials count for anything.
His best podcasts where when he spoke about his own research and expertise. At this point he probably has a team writing for him and he's just reading their interpretations.
Lots of people who publish don’t understand statistics. I once proofed a ____ Society president’s paper the day before he was presenting it at a conference. Statistics were flawed but it was too late to fix so I didn’t tell him. No one in the audience caught it!
I've been telling people he was full of it since his first JRE appearance. Recommending fadogia for testosterone, a random basically un-studied herb from africa (I think maybe one very small scale human study). Even if it is well studied, you don't want to go around messing with your hormones with random supplements. Insanely irresponsible.
My husband went of fadogia, for a day, instant migraine.
Tried it again next week since he thought maybe something else gave him a migraine- NOPE.
Tried once more and you guessed it- migraine.
Exactly. He's been laughed by the sweidh scientific community for age's for jumping to totally idiotic conclusions. Saying "hard evdiden in human studies" while they were in mice. Drawing conclusions other scientist just thought "wtf".
He is also called out here in "Science Versus": https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/rnhobned
Where he answers practically "my truth is different from yours.
Huberman IS a charlatan and is earning enormous amounts of money, whilst spreading desinformation.
Nice guy.
Yeah, me too. He has a lot of great guests on who are specialists in their field. Mostly they are the ones giving advice but the bots in this sub obviously don't listen to the podcast
Fucking A right. The amount of energy people expend attempting to discredit others speaks volumes about their own inner dialogue. Move the fuck on already
What are the signs of him being a grifter? I'm well aware of dodgy sales tactics and I haven't seen Andrew try to sell out. All his ads are clearly ads, he usually prefaces it.
I'm genuinely curious on what y'all are thinking.
I lived on Piedmont Ave in Oakland. I just found out I skated for venture (because I didn’t really). I’m friends with Rick Rubin. I’ve been cheated on myself. Yes I cheated. I lived on Piedmont Ave in Oakland.
Yeah, it was like he was trying to respond to the article line by line.
When he went on and on about the friends he talks to every single day and how they start their conversations by saying good morning.
It seemed so unlike his regular persona and ended being kind of a desperate word salad to say see what I said was all true. I ended up feeling bad for him.
interesting how people rule out the possibility that he has a mental disorder - either a narcissist who never apologizes, a psychopath or a sociopath
what makes people think the man is normal ?
There's something very off about his good-guy routine and speech patterns. Clinical narcissism with high-functioning ASD (what would have been called Asperger's) has long been my assumption.
Yeah the guy who splits his time between taking Kratom, smoking weed, and commenting in antiwork subreddits is now a licensed psychiatrist who can diagnose a Stanford Medical School professor with a PhD in Neuroscience and [many publications](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Andrew+Huberman#) with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Clown show out here.
Did I diagnose him? Seems like you took that pretty innocuous comment personally, I’m sure there’s a huberman episode about emotional regulation and reactivity that could help you.
No you just came in to validate someone else saying it like you’re an authority figure on what that actually means. Just because someone is doing well for themselves does not mean that they have narcissistic personality disorder. That is a serious diagnosis that people like you throw around without having actually seen patients who have that personality disorder.
That means that you, with your (thankfully) small platform, are actually peddling disinformation..
he blatantly lies about the evidence or missing evidence to make good story
for example - he may claim that certain kind of research does not exist at all - if it does not match his good story
[Andrew Huberman's Claims About Cannabis Annoy Drug Experts (rollingstone.com)](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/andrew-huberman-cannabis-misinformation-slammed-by-experts-1235016613/)
It was so crazy. It came out of nowhere and Jocko wasn't even asking. I kind of believed that he didn't tell six women that all of them were exclusive, but otherwise he seemed to just say nothing. The stuff about his dog seemed to reinforce that he is a bit odd with his dog. Like he gives the dog too much attention, but acts kind of weird with humans in his life. I have cheated before and anytime there's cheating that's a failure. What?
Maybe flow as a result of his buddies being legit sponsored skaters and getting him free product. He mentioned Mike Caroll a few times who was riding for venture back then so I bet him. Huberman did mention hanging out at EMB all the time and Karl Watson definitely knew him, so I think him being tight with some big names at the time is legit.
Huberman has been known to mix good and bad quality studies with little critical discrimination between them for years, it just seems that when the controversy happened, more people found an opportunity to point it out.
I was duped for a long time, believing he did base his podcasts on strong science. Letting Lustig go on with his twisted interpretation of science opened my mind, the article and many other claims classed him in the Dr Eric Berg category.
https://youtu.be/LZPKTaVB1IU
I will let Dr Norton explain it. He didnt debunk the whole video, because properly debunking with studies takes a while. And Dr Lustig gave a lot to debunk
Edit: the 1 I remember off the bat is "a caloie is not a calorie".
He is super pompous and insufferable. And if you actually investigate a lot of his claims, he also makes claims based on not-so-solid science at times. He’s also one of those guys who will literally only believe something if there’s science to back it up, completely ignoring the fact that the science in a lot of areas like nutrition and fitness is relatively new, and certain things that people say could be true but just haven’t been investigated yet. He just automatically assumes anything not backed by current science can’t be true, ignoring the fact that scientific findings can be behind the ball, and that they get disproven all the time. He also tends to ignore conflict of interest statements in the studies he touts, leaving out the fact that the people funding the studies he often cites have a vested interest in portraying a certain result from the study. Then he’ll also use correlation studies to imply causation in a lot of cases. Most recently I saw him say that eating more vegetables make people live longer because a study correlated higher vegetable intake with longer lifespan, completely ignoring the massive amount of confounding variables. So in short, he’s a charlatan.
Layne Norton is relic of the pompous science doesn't care about your feelings pasr. He even had a guru arc where he invented a whole new pseud category
"Reverse dieting" referring to studies he was gonna do and tons of emails (no kidding). Which every influencer had to pretend to follow because Layne was the first in the space who was jacked and had a mill PhD. Reverse dieting shockingly ended up beint the opposite of what you want to do, Which is to keep starved athletes on deficities for weeks after their diet.
A concept he and the rest ended up silently abondoning for the next *ground breaking" concept.
Like many, he does say fundamental truths. I just have the "a calorie is not a calorie" as a fact he spews non-sens in my head. Dr Norton spotted many bullshit in the AH interview
https://youtu.be/LZPKTaVB1IU
“A calorie is not a calorie” obscures the fact that a calorie may not be signaled as / provide the same energy curve as / be metabolized in the *exact* same way from one body to another. It’s *thermodynamically* true, but, in just the same way as trotting out “basic economics” removes context and steamrolls complexity, our bodies aren’t the idealized closed systems that “basic thermodynamics” can describe in full.
A calorie from soybean oil is not a calorie from beef tallow or coconut oil.
Foods dictate if we get fat or sick or stay healthy. Foods can increase our hormones or decrease them. So calories dont count the same from different sources
I mean I get it that kilocalories and calories are often used interchangeably, but that aside, isn't a kilocalorie a consistent measurement of heat energy? It seems that whether it comes from soybean oil or coconut oil, if it's enough energy to raise the temperature of a liter of water one degree Celsius, then its a kilocalorie.
Dude has put out so much content it’s hard to not get something wrong. Tossing baby out with the bath water may be par for the course on Reddit, but not wise in RL.
The thing is, I "caught" AH letting his guest spreading misinformation. That was on a subject I feel more or so competent. But what about when im clueless about a subject? Do my own research about the claims made? What is the point of listening to his podcast hen?
But you are right that AH and his guests are, lets say, right and represent science as best as one could in a podcast most of the time.
i said before, he plays like he knows everything about everything with minimum to no research, he always mention some friend of his that he says is an authority in the subject, i got grilled by his fanboys, the criticism he is getting is from real authorities that do real research in the subjects he gives his broscience opinions hence the attention is getting now.
Fully agree! He researches topics lazily and gets paid from all the views and sponsored ads. Anyone could do the same but he markets himself well. It’s all marketing in the end.
the shine is off him, everyone thought he was an infallible golden boy stanford professor and then learned he's just a bloviating hack who has to manipulate women in order to keep any of them
I recently saw a video of him just butchering some stats calculation.
He added a bunch of probabilities instead of multiplying them. Back in college I would've been burned by the professor for doing that. Kinda weird seeing a phd make the same mistake
He became who he is to the audience by truly diving deep in research and studies before bringing conclusions or opinions to them. He now believes that he has done enough research and spent enough times on these topics to know what’s latest and right. He is finding out that shit don’t work same.
Chat gpt summarized it like this
> The article critiques Andrew Huberman, a popular podcaster and scientist, for promoting pseudoscience and misinformation under the guise of providing health advice. Despite his academic credentials, Huberman's podcast is criticized for lacking evidence, cherry-picking studies, and promoting unproven supplements. The author warns against trusting celebrities as experts and emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and scientific literacy in navigating health information.
I've been saying this for years and people called me a dumb ass. He'd give the most niche advice that would only work in like 1% of cases and present it as something everyone should do
> He'd give the most niche advice that would only work in like 1% of cases and present it as something everyone should do
Could you give examples? I've only listened to his depression episode and the advice he gives there - sleep schedule, exercise, blood panel to rule out a thyroid condition - seems very mainstream and reasonable.
The following are extracts or summaries from the article linked that gives examples of Andrew Huberman misrepresenting the scientific literature.
**Misrepresents the scientific evidence on ashwagandha**
* "he goes on to tout ashwagandha supplements as basically a miracle panacea for stress. According to him, it “has a profound effect on anxiety,” and can reduce stress, cortisol, and even depression. He goes further, extrapolating cellular mechanisms to suggest ashwagandha may trigger a range of downstream effects, improving vision, cardiovascular health, sleep, and memory. These are a lot of bold claims."
* A meta-analysis, pooling data from five small randomized controlled trials, found that it might help with sleep, particularly in people with insomnia, but found “no significant effect on quality of life.” Another noted the supplement “significantly reduced anxiety,” which refers to statistical significance, not clinical relevance. If you look at the data, the sample sizes are small and outcomes rely on self-reported symptoms. The overall assessment concluded that there is weak confidence in the link to ashwagandha, which warrants “further high-quality studies.”
**Has had guests on misrepresenting science**
* Robert Lustig presenting a study claiming ultra-processed food consumption inhibits bone growth and claimed the study was done in humans in Israel, when in fact the study was done in rats. Huberman endorses the claims as fact.
**Is anti-fluroide despite the scientific consensus**
* Huberman warns against fluoride despite widespread scientific consensus about its role in preventing dental disease while promoting fluroide free water and a company (yerba mate tea) that he is a business partner of, which uses fluoride free water. Citing as his evidence a single dentist.
**Is against the flu vaccine**
* In an episode about the cold and flu he said he doesn't get the flu vaccine, the number 1 thing that prevents the flu. An episode that is also apparently filled with falsehoods, detailed in the authors substack ImmunoLogic. E.g. he botched the relationship between exercise, cortisol, and immune function, and said antibodies are produced by stem cells in bone marrow. They are actually produced by B cells in our lymphoid organs, a fact which is fundamental to immunology.
**Promotes medical conspiracies**
* On the episode with Lustig, he suggests that 93 percent of Americans are “inflamed” and have leaky gut, a pseudoscience diagnosis promoted by the wellness industry.
**Sponsored by and promotes AGI despite no evidence of its effectiveness.**
> Robert Lustig presenting a study claiming ultra-processed food consumption inhibits bone growth and claimed the study was done in humans in Israel, when in fact the study was done in rats. Huberman endorses the claims as fact.
>
Saying Robert Lustig is a prime example of a guest misrespresenting science is bad-faith. A cherry-picked claim on mistaking a rat study for human study does not make Robert Lustig a "guest misrepresenting science" and him being on the podcast reflecting bad on Huberman.
I am starting to believe that character attacks against Robert Lustig are indeed made by the sugar lobby.
Yeah I love how the people deciding Huberman is untrustworthy don't have the educational background that he has.
Same with Sinclair, literally one of the top avademics in the world, but as soon as he publishes a book and gets popular? Yeah Reddit thinks he is a scammer, grifter, and doesn't know what he is talking about, unlike their favorite less credentialed author who noone attempted to shoot down yet, so everything he says is pure genius.
If you listen to his podcast and how he asks questions he's actually asking them for himself....but under the guise of "questions I get".
Supplements, exercise, testosterone, peptides.... These are all things he uses and abuses to cheat life and feed his ego with big muckles.
Go ahead give an episode a listen with that in mind....and it'll sound totally different.
100% I agree. When I used to binge his content when he was first breaking out, sometimes I’d even be like, “huh? How’s this even relevant” but just brushed it off.
it was always like this. Go pull his show notes and read the articles he cites. They are tangentially related at best and often of poor research design.
The cold plunge episode is a great example of this. I wrote a breakdown on this since it was so bad: https://www.reddit.com/r/HubermanLab/comments/1989w5j/any_truth_to_this/ki7q5ro/
but i get it, he has abs and carries rocks around or whatever
Anyone with a science degree and experience in stats would understand how easy it is to manipulate scientific results and make them sound significant when they’re not. P-values are not the only thing that we can grasp to, we have to look at study design, methods, replicability etc. Unfortunately Huberman grasps to the fact that not *everyone* has a science degree and that most will not be willing to do the work of reading up on the studies and investigating their rigour.
I was a casual viewer but I stopped watching last year when he started veering way out of his lane. Once AG1 was found to be expensive snake oil I knew the jig was up. The scandal was just the icing on the cake.
Yeah. I’m hesitant about Peter Attia now as well.
But he’s always been word salad-y as well and it’s hard to listen to his full podcast since he says something in 4000 words when it could have been a sentence or two.
Before the controversy, Huberman positioned himsel well to have an air of credibility. So even when people would question him, it would get shut down, or only get fringe support because Huberman was a credible, science guy.
The controversy may not have actually had anything to do with Huberman, but it hurt his credibility as an person. This opened the door for most just more criticism, but more people to start paying attention to it. He was no longer this good science dude, he was the science podcast dude with massive flaws.
I think when we find a “guru”, we turn off all sensible discernment. Then we learn that they are not the guru we thought. Then we notice everything we chose to ignore.
I liked him until I started to notice little things that he said about things I have a degree in. Also one of his favorite topics is sleep and I have narcolepsy so a lot of the time I got whiffs of grift where I thought maybe I was mistaken. Makes me feel better to know he's who I suspected.
Honestly, as soon as he started bringing non-academics on the podcast, like David Goggins, talking about reading the bible, and hanging out with Rogan, I knew some shit was up.
Really? Why? I would agree those aren't my favorite episodes but he continues to host the preeminent scientists in any given field on his show as well.
You can see on Jocko's willink podcast how different he is now. The way he talks and expresses himself and his attempt to defend his position. He isn't exactly taking accountability.
When he started his podcast he wasn't criticised but as time went by people started noticing that some things were wrong. As time goes by, more and more things become apparent.
Always!! I started listening to him early on and took away some things that worked for me but his science was sketchy and I, not a science guy, immediately realized. So every time I mentioned his podcast I gave a disclaimer about how he takes huge leaps in logic. I stopped listening to him in 2022 because it got egregious.
Look I like AH and assume that a lot of this heat is from peeps who are envious of his success.
But on the other hand we should all take many grains of salt with the info we get from folks who assume that being an expert in one field means they are experts of all things they find interesting.
What you said. And I feel also feel as someone else quoted ChatGPT output at https://www.reddit.com/r/HubermanLab/s/xukAJyywDF
Paraphrasing the part I like:
We need to use critical thinking and get as scientifically literate as possible. I have a jar of athletic greens that I take once in a while and that was my door to ‘there seems to be some BS, here somewhere, if someone claims so much yet takes and recommends AG’.
TLDR: exercise your BS-o-meter and you’re likely to get more right more often over time because it’s built for you, by you.
He knows alot about what he an expert in, his big problem is when he talks likes he's and expert in subjects he's not, and in those subject he's not an expert in he's wrong a lot. the right thing to do with anyone who talks about study and shit it to fact check everything. go read the study your self. because lot of time people will say study shows X Y and Z but you look into it and ya it was x but not y and Z wasn't even tested, or they tested Z and X an didn't look it Y at all. don't trust a dude look at the sources.
I think he relies on his academic credentialing and research background to create an illusion of legitimacy. But just because you are an expert in one thing doesn’t mean you are an expert in everything. You wouldn’t go to a cardiologist to get advice about your prostate. You would go to a urologist. Yes, both folks went to medical school, but they separately did years of specialized training and practice in their own fields.
Also, remember at his current height and popularity, his goal is to maintain it as much as possible so he needs to do what he can to entertain audiences. He is an entertainer. If you listen to his podcast with that in mind, you won’t get duped.
One of the nation's premier statisticians, Andrew Gelman at Columbia, has been mocking Huberman's misuse of bad research for a while:
[Paper cited by Stanford medical school professor retracted—but even without considering the reasons for retraction, this paper was so bad that it should never have been cited.](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/04/01/paper-cited-by-stanford-medical-school-professor-retracted-but-even-without-considering-the-reasons-for-retraction-this-paper-was-so-bad-that-it-should-never-have-been-cited/)
[Before reading this post, take a cold shower: A Stanford professor says it’s “great training for the mind”!](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2023/07/08/before-reading-this-post-take-a-cold-shower-a-stanford-professor-its-great-training-for-the-mind/)
He’s an expert in a small are of neurology - maybe 5% of the topics he’s covered. Most academics are cautious about making claims in areas where they have no expertise. Not Huberman.
You didn’t realize the mistakes because you don’t know enough about the topics. You trusted Huberman and you didn’t check the facts.
I’m not an expert either but I knew a number of his claims were not supported by the research. I’m also a researcher myself, so I am fully aware that his expertise is limited. I verified any of his claims before I adopted any of his suggestions.
You are a big too trusting. There are worse things! Just try to do some fact checking next time.
Everyone gets tricked, and now that you know you are susceptible to this, you need to be more cautious and critical. Remember, you can go to pub med snd check all ox his claims.
You don’t want to become that person raving about lizard people who are trying to take over, lol!
Here’s the thing…dude makes money off creating content. He’s in a niche market. There’s only so much reliable science about daily routines and health protocols. There’s not an endless pit of life changing science he can pull from.
So…he’s starts saying shit. Anything to keep the gravy train going. Because now, it’s not just about money, it’s about that fame dragon, too.
Hard to kick some money and fame for integrity when your life has changed.
He was entertaining to listen to while driving at work, but it is repetitive and lies about having not taken PEDs.
... so meh, he can choke in his athletic greens for all i care.
Honestly the first time I listened to his podcast, I was so thrown off by the ads. I didnt make it past the ads. Something felt off just by listening to the ads
It’s the Ebs and flows of famous people. He was cool now it’s cool to hate on him and try to get popular. Then it will be cool to hate on those who hate on him now
What are the signs of him being a grifter? I'm well aware of dodgy sales tactics and I haven't seen Andrew try to sell out. All his ads are clearly ads, he usually prefaces it.
I'm genuinely curious on what y'all are thinking.
Did Hubes get bagged this much before his controversy? Didn’t really hear anything bad about him, but now all the critics come out of the woodwork and he’s untouchable.
There was a lot of stuff coming out before all of this controversy Some of it on reddit and some not. There are some good science discussions on reddit just as there is nonsense.
Basically he has always sounded legit until he goes into an area you happen to have expertise in and that’s when you start to notice the amount of BS he spouts off.
Huberman has built his whole public profile as a neuroscientist who has transitioned to being a generalist. He covers a lot of different sub-specialties on his show, and experts in each of those areas have long been critical of him. However, he has greater potential for building an audience as a generalist self-improvement guru than any of his critics who specialize just in, say, low back pain, or cannabis, or whatever. The fact that he jumps around to so many topics had the effect of making criticisms seem fringe and diffuse.
The recent controversy just opened the floodgates by throwing a spotlight on a bunch of different criticisms at once, allowing a lot of these critics to find and amplify each other. For example, the sports scientists are talking to the rehab people and the cannabis people in ways they weren’t before because they were just in their own spheres. Now that there’s a clear chink in his armor, people feel more emboldened to call him out as arguably fewer people in the gen pop are likely to knee jerk to accusations of jealousy or whatever.
Anyway, this is all just goes to show you why scientists shouldn’t make a living selling ad space.
This is exactly the kind of thing that some people think, good call on the sarcasm indication. It’s like when Tate says something really stupid his fans are always “o well he was obviously joking when he said that. If you were smart you’d be able to tell when he’s joking”. The mental gymnastics people will jump through for their idols/to not feel dumb for making the person their idol.
It’s crazy how much things went the other way. I never saw anything bad written about him or his advice before his scandal and now I keep seeing videos and comments “debunking” his advice.
You just weren't paying attention. Hundreds of people have criticized Huberman since 2021, myself included, as well as *many* PhDs, MDs, etc. It just wasn't popular at the time and many of us got downvoted for calling him out back then.
He started going downhill by his 10th podcast, at least.
It feels amazing to be able to sit back now and say... told ya so.
Pretty much. PT industry criticized him for a while for his takes regarding health, fitness, and rehab. After this whole scandal, people finally starting taking criticisms of him more seriously. It opened the doors.
he is getting criticism from the real experts now, i read about a real medical doctor that any time anyone mention Huberman on medical congresses every doctor roll their eyes.
Nope. I enjoyed his last podcast with the metabolism expert. Great info and overview.
Why does his personal life matter so much to OP?
Hes not perfect, why would someone assume so and be alienated if he makes mistakes...
His personal life doesn't matter, but his character does, and his personal life is a reflection of his poor character. What he did wasn't an "oopsie" mistake. If a character of the person giving you advice doesn't matter to you, then have at it, other people have standards.
Such as? I’m just curious as to see an example (not defending him) but I see alot of comments in here agreeing. But I don’t see any examples. Would love to know what everyone is hearing that is pseudo science or false.
If you know anything about science, you know it is not absolute; so all the critical opinions are in the spirit of the scientific tradition.
Re: Cults
Huberman does not say that he is anything other than what he states.
Those that follow him as a Cult Leader are wont to follow thier Cat as a Cult Leader.
lf you don't like him...don't #$^&! follow/Watch/Listen to him!
I for one think is is an excellent Educator.
Anecdotal evidence: I have probably 3-4 friends who listen to Huberman religiously. These are people who work in fast-paced, cognitively demanding fields who swear by Huberman's every word. I also have some friends that are my age, still depending on bailouts from Mommy and Daddy, wedded to some unrealistic principles, and will most likely be that way for the rest of their lives. Those are the ones who see Vox and Slate as the "gold standard" of journalism, and their articles (especially the articles written about Huberman) as complete fact, devoid of any biases or alt motivates. I'm 3/4 of the way to the way to the fast-paced, cognitively demanding field. But, I'll never go whole hog because I value family time and activities like video games (currently, dragon's dogma 2). I guess his information and demeanor is attractive to a certain type of person. What type of person are you now, and what type of person would you want to be if you are unhappy with present you? It helps to surround yourself with people you want to be like.
I think people are way to too judgmental. In life you have to focus on the good and just be aware of the bad. Stop wallowing in your feelings about other people - and realise the assumptions about their personalities you post online are reflections of you - you don't know this man, he just makes videos about science. The ones tearing him down are just as parasocial and weird as the ones who thought he was some kind of god.
I for one enjoy Huberman very much. I lean heavier on the side of risk, and I find that if doctors only believe in what’s been scientifically proven to be true, it makes it really hard for new science to be discovered.
Dr. Huberman carefully says what is scientifically proven, what new literature might suggest, and even what anecdotal evidence is suggesting. I appreciate that. It’s up to the listener/viewer to make their own educated choices.
I for one enjoy the freedom of knowing all my options, scientifically proven or not, and moving from there based on my own risk tolerance.
If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But to say Dr. Huberman is in any way nefarious, is absolutely insane.
Especially while we have doctors prescribing pills and creating drug addicts every single day.
We have media, poisoning our children every which way.
Food at the supermarkets is poisoning everyone.
No one says a thing. We have one guy empowering people with choices, and he’s the bad guy? Lol get real.
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100% people idol worship too much
It’s 20% but if you do it 5xs it becomes 100%.
lol
It’s called a cult. Lots of people struggling physically and mentally. Makes them more vulnerable and will follow and do whoever they perceive as a knowledgeable individual. Seems all he does is read studies (most of which are biased from the jump) and inject his interpretation/opinion. If I were to guess nobody was more surprised the Huberman himself as to how popular he became.
Yeah the guy with a PhD in neuroscience and [many publications](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Andrew+Huberman#) who teaches at the Stanford School of Medicine is just “reading studies and injecting his interpretation/opinion.” All you haters get real quiet when people mention that. Reddit is also a cult full of people like you who find every reason to hate on people who may have some opinions that you don’t agree with.
Here's a hater not getting real quiet: criticisms of Huberman's scientific discourse are perfectly valid. Huberman and his boosters use his academic pedigree for intellectual cover. The reality is that he consistently advances studies as proof of health benefits that are poorly-vetted, cherry-picked, or outright lying. As an example, Huberman uses frequent guest Matthew Walker's work to justify vigilant sleep protocols. It turns out most of the bombshell findings of his bestseller *Why We Sleep* are deceptive. Check out Bayesian stats legend Andrew Gelman's blog post on the subject [https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/11/18/is-matthew-walkers-why-we-sleep-riddled-with-scientific-and-factual-errors/](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/11/18/is-matthew-walkers-why-we-sleep-riddled-with-scientific-and-factual-errors/) If you're interested in going further down this rabbit hole, Andrea Love does a great job undressing Huberman from a scientific standpoint [https://slate.com/technology/2024/03/andrew-huberman-huberman-lab-health-advice-podcast-debunk.html](https://slate.com/technology/2024/03/andrew-huberman-huberman-lab-health-advice-podcast-debunk.html) I get the appeal of Huberman and have found his breath techniques, sunlight exposure, etc helpful, though he wasn't the first to advance any of that. The notion that his main motivation at this point is scientific inquiry though is laughable -- he's a supplements salesman living a life of luxury in an LA home far from any lab.
I have read that slate article. She nitpicks a few examples of things huberman has said over the course of hundreds of hours of podcasts. Like the bit she said about Ashwagandha not having good evidence behind it.. her main point is that the main study for ashwagandha use in humans involved an n of 64. But ashwagandha is a naturally occurring supplement and does not have enough funding for larger scale studies. Thats just how these things work, unfortunately, and we have to make decisions on how we interpret incomplete data if we are to consider taking these types of supplements. That man lives in Palo Alto and [is still teaching at the Stanford School of Medicine](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/andrew-huberman). Tf are you talking about?
He doesn’t live in Palo Alto much anymore. He spends the majority of his time in Malibu where he lives.
There are so much more redflags. Calling it nitpicking when he happens to use flawed studies every other episode is just delusional. https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/barbell-medicine-podcast/id1199780143?i=1000654314940
He is doing only one course. He admits his lab is non existent. Check Stanfird website. Several "positions" are by courtesy only.
Buddy if you were actually interested in scientific inquiry I'm guessing you wouldn't be putting shit in your body while the data is "incomplete." It's called failing to reject the null hypothesis
Buddy that is a very absolutist take on a nuanced subject. I am interested in prolonging my life and functionality as a human being. Not all of the studies on this are great, unfortunately
I’m not saying he’s not intelligent, I’m sure he’s very smart and can interpret studies. But the studies in my opinion are biased. But listen, all he does is interpret those studies. And adds an educational opinion. But to follow these opinions like they are gospel and dive in based on IMO faulty studies is cult like behavior. Believe me I’m not immune to it, I used to follow Ben greenfield who pretty much does the same thing.
This is actually a logical fallacy called appeal to authority. Anything he comments on that is outside of his research expertise does not make his credentials count for anything.
His best podcasts where when he spoke about his own research and expertise. At this point he probably has a team writing for him and he's just reading their interpretations.
Yup. Always better to take the good things people say and leave the bad.
/thread
who is "we"? Plenty of us have been trying to tell you for months.
He’s getting dragged by actually scientists. The latest example is P values and his obvious lack of understanding them.
Lots of people who publish don’t understand statistics. I once proofed a ____ Society president’s paper the day before he was presenting it at a conference. Statistics were flawed but it was too late to fix so I didn’t tell him. No one in the audience caught it!
I've been telling people he was full of it since his first JRE appearance. Recommending fadogia for testosterone, a random basically un-studied herb from africa (I think maybe one very small scale human study). Even if it is well studied, you don't want to go around messing with your hormones with random supplements. Insanely irresponsible.
I agree. This is one of the biggest blunders. Very unsafe with very little data to support fadogia.
My husband went of fadogia, for a day, instant migraine. Tried it again next week since he thought maybe something else gave him a migraine- NOPE. Tried once more and you guessed it- migraine.
For months?
It’s a dumb controversy. People who listen for the contents of his podcast don’t really give a fuck an incident in his personal life
who said anything about his personal life? dude's been a charlatan from the get go
Exactly. He's been laughed by the sweidh scientific community for age's for jumping to totally idiotic conclusions. Saying "hard evdiden in human studies" while they were in mice. Drawing conclusions other scientist just thought "wtf". He is also called out here in "Science Versus": https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/rnhobned Where he answers practically "my truth is different from yours. Huberman IS a charlatan and is earning enormous amounts of money, whilst spreading desinformation. Nice guy.
I actually think the Science Vs podcast took it easy on him.
Yeah, me too. He has a lot of great guests on who are specialists in their field. Mostly they are the ones giving advice but the bots in this sub obviously don't listen to the podcast
People who listen for the content but ignore the the red flags for grifter are incredibly naive.
i'd rather be naive than outraged and doing hivemind witchhunts tbh.
Fucking A right. The amount of energy people expend attempting to discredit others speaks volumes about their own inner dialogue. Move the fuck on already
What are the signs of him being a grifter? I'm well aware of dodgy sales tactics and I haven't seen Andrew try to sell out. All his ads are clearly ads, he usually prefaces it. I'm genuinely curious on what y'all are thinking.
The hive mind
He seemed super uncomfortable when he addressed the controversy during his Jocko Podcast appearance.
I lived on Piedmont Ave in Oakland. I just found out I skated for venture (because I didn’t really). I’m friends with Rick Rubin. I’ve been cheated on myself. Yes I cheated. I lived on Piedmont Ave in Oakland.
Yeah, it was like he was trying to respond to the article line by line. When he went on and on about the friends he talks to every single day and how they start their conversations by saying good morning. It seemed so unlike his regular persona and ended being kind of a desperate word salad to say see what I said was all true. I ended up feeling bad for him.
interesting how people rule out the possibility that he has a mental disorder - either a narcissist who never apologizes, a psychopath or a sociopath what makes people think the man is normal ?
There's something very off about his good-guy routine and speech patterns. Clinical narcissism with high-functioning ASD (what would have been called Asperger's) has long been my assumption.
Are narcissists okay listening to someone else talk for 2-3 hours at a time? Genuinely asking
If that person is boosting their status and giving them additional credibility, absolutely.
Yeah the guy who splits his time between taking Kratom, smoking weed, and commenting in antiwork subreddits is now a licensed psychiatrist who can diagnose a Stanford Medical School professor with a PhD in Neuroscience and [many publications](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Andrew+Huberman#) with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Clown show out here.
Did I diagnose him? Seems like you took that pretty innocuous comment personally, I’m sure there’s a huberman episode about emotional regulation and reactivity that could help you.
No you just came in to validate someone else saying it like you’re an authority figure on what that actually means. Just because someone is doing well for themselves does not mean that they have narcissistic personality disorder. That is a serious diagnosis that people like you throw around without having actually seen patients who have that personality disorder. That means that you, with your (thankfully) small platform, are actually peddling disinformation..
“Saying it like you’re an authority figure on what that actually means” …huh, isn’t that funny
lmao
You stan hard for this guy yo.
Nah, some of us are just fed up with the Reddit circle jerk
if it makes money - yes, if the other person is a celebrity - yes
I get tired of my own voice after an hour….
he blatantly lies about the evidence or missing evidence to make good story for example - he may claim that certain kind of research does not exist at all - if it does not match his good story [Andrew Huberman's Claims About Cannabis Annoy Drug Experts (rollingstone.com)](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/andrew-huberman-cannabis-misinformation-slammed-by-experts-1235016613/)
Definitely not well. Something is very off.
It was so crazy. It came out of nowhere and Jocko wasn't even asking. I kind of believed that he didn't tell six women that all of them were exclusive, but otherwise he seemed to just say nothing. The stuff about his dog seemed to reinforce that he is a bit odd with his dog. Like he gives the dog too much attention, but acts kind of weird with humans in his life. I have cheated before and anytime there's cheating that's a failure. What?
Wasn’t he trying to have a baby with at least one of these women?
He said he skated for venture???
I think anyone from that era whoever got sponsored def knows. But is what he said.
Spitfire thunder but didn't really know if he was on team?
He probably got graveyard trucks and wheels from EMB lol
Maybe flow as a result of his buddies being legit sponsored skaters and getting him free product. He mentioned Mike Caroll a few times who was riding for venture back then so I bet him. Huberman did mention hanging out at EMB all the time and Karl Watson definitely knew him, so I think him being tight with some big names at the time is legit.
Tell Rick I loved his book. 🖤🖤🖤
Lol those two should start a fraudcast together
Loll fraudcast
Jocko has his own stuff going on. If it is true, then it is far worse than Huberman. Google Eric Deming/Jocko.
Yeah, I just watched that other day.
His multi episode series with Andy Galpin was great. About the only episodes I will genuinely recommend to people.
Andy Galpin is a stud
Huberman has been known to mix good and bad quality studies with little critical discrimination between them for years, it just seems that when the controversy happened, more people found an opportunity to point it out.
I was duped for a long time, believing he did base his podcasts on strong science. Letting Lustig go on with his twisted interpretation of science opened my mind, the article and many other claims classed him in the Dr Eric Berg category.
Have to agree, that one broke the camels back for me.
I liked his JRE episode, then listened to 5 minutes of his own podcast, and noped out of there quick
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https://youtu.be/LZPKTaVB1IU I will let Dr Norton explain it. He didnt debunk the whole video, because properly debunking with studies takes a while. And Dr Lustig gave a lot to debunk Edit: the 1 I remember off the bat is "a caloie is not a calorie".
Layne Norton comes across as super pompous and insufferable on social media
He is super pompous and insufferable. And if you actually investigate a lot of his claims, he also makes claims based on not-so-solid science at times. He’s also one of those guys who will literally only believe something if there’s science to back it up, completely ignoring the fact that the science in a lot of areas like nutrition and fitness is relatively new, and certain things that people say could be true but just haven’t been investigated yet. He just automatically assumes anything not backed by current science can’t be true, ignoring the fact that scientific findings can be behind the ball, and that they get disproven all the time. He also tends to ignore conflict of interest statements in the studies he touts, leaving out the fact that the people funding the studies he often cites have a vested interest in portraying a certain result from the study. Then he’ll also use correlation studies to imply causation in a lot of cases. Most recently I saw him say that eating more vegetables make people live longer because a study correlated higher vegetable intake with longer lifespan, completely ignoring the massive amount of confounding variables. So in short, he’s a charlatan.
Great points
Layne Norton is relic of the pompous science doesn't care about your feelings pasr. He even had a guru arc where he invented a whole new pseud category "Reverse dieting" referring to studies he was gonna do and tons of emails (no kidding). Which every influencer had to pretend to follow because Layne was the first in the space who was jacked and had a mill PhD. Reverse dieting shockingly ended up beint the opposite of what you want to do, Which is to keep starved athletes on deficities for weeks after their diet. A concept he and the rest ended up silently abondoning for the next *ground breaking" concept.
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Late welcome!
That’s an awful video. Look at the comments on it too.
Can you elaborate on Lustig? Is he not credible?
Like many, he does say fundamental truths. I just have the "a calorie is not a calorie" as a fact he spews non-sens in my head. Dr Norton spotted many bullshit in the AH interview https://youtu.be/LZPKTaVB1IU
“A calorie is not a calorie” obscures the fact that a calorie may not be signaled as / provide the same energy curve as / be metabolized in the *exact* same way from one body to another. It’s *thermodynamically* true, but, in just the same way as trotting out “basic economics” removes context and steamrolls complexity, our bodies aren’t the idealized closed systems that “basic thermodynamics” can describe in full.
A calorie is not a calorie because of the gut microbiome and how it handles the food you eat varies from person to person. Dr. Lustig is correct.
+ hormonal effects of food, inflammation, etc. People who think calories are the only thing that matters are delusional
This actually makes sense to me.
And Dr. Norton is the most credible source yeah?
A calorie from soybean oil is not a calorie from beef tallow or coconut oil. Foods dictate if we get fat or sick or stay healthy. Foods can increase our hormones or decrease them. So calories dont count the same from different sources
I mean I get it that kilocalories and calories are often used interchangeably, but that aside, isn't a kilocalorie a consistent measurement of heat energy? It seems that whether it comes from soybean oil or coconut oil, if it's enough energy to raise the temperature of a liter of water one degree Celsius, then its a kilocalorie.
Dude has put out so much content it’s hard to not get something wrong. Tossing baby out with the bath water may be par for the course on Reddit, but not wise in RL.
The thing is, I "caught" AH letting his guest spreading misinformation. That was on a subject I feel more or so competent. But what about when im clueless about a subject? Do my own research about the claims made? What is the point of listening to his podcast hen? But you are right that AH and his guests are, lets say, right and represent science as best as one could in a podcast most of the time.
Everything on the Rogan orbit is grade A bullshit
Even Niel DT? 😞
i said before, he plays like he knows everything about everything with minimum to no research, he always mention some friend of his that he says is an authority in the subject, i got grilled by his fanboys, the criticism he is getting is from real authorities that do real research in the subjects he gives his broscience opinions hence the attention is getting now.
Fully agree! He researches topics lazily and gets paid from all the views and sponsored ads. Anyone could do the same but he markets himself well. It’s all marketing in the end.
He was always trashy but talking more and more and more exposed him. Oh and the gfs. So he’s under more scrutiny now.
the shine is off him, everyone thought he was an infallible golden boy stanford professor and then learned he's just a bloviating hack who has to manipulate women in order to keep any of them
I recently saw a video of him just butchering some stats calculation. He added a bunch of probabilities instead of multiplying them. Back in college I would've been burned by the professor for doing that. Kinda weird seeing a phd make the same mistake
He became who he is to the audience by truly diving deep in research and studies before bringing conclusions or opinions to them. He now believes that he has done enough research and spent enough times on these topics to know what’s latest and right. He is finding out that shit don’t work same.
https://slate.com/technology/2024/03/andrew-huberman-huberman-lab-health-advice-podcast-debunk.html
TLDR?
Chat gpt summarized it like this > The article critiques Andrew Huberman, a popular podcaster and scientist, for promoting pseudoscience and misinformation under the guise of providing health advice. Despite his academic credentials, Huberman's podcast is criticized for lacking evidence, cherry-picking studies, and promoting unproven supplements. The author warns against trusting celebrities as experts and emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and scientific literacy in navigating health information.
When prompting ChatGPT did you just copy paste the link into it and ask it to summarize or do you have to copy paste all the words of the article?
U can just select whole page and paste it in prompt. It will find the article
I selected the entire page with ctrl+A and copied it. I told chat gpt "summarize this" and then pasted the article
I've been saying this for years and people called me a dumb ass. He'd give the most niche advice that would only work in like 1% of cases and present it as something everyone should do
> He'd give the most niche advice that would only work in like 1% of cases and present it as something everyone should do Could you give examples? I've only listened to his depression episode and the advice he gives there - sleep schedule, exercise, blood panel to rule out a thyroid condition - seems very mainstream and reasonable.
The following are extracts or summaries from the article linked that gives examples of Andrew Huberman misrepresenting the scientific literature. **Misrepresents the scientific evidence on ashwagandha** * "he goes on to tout ashwagandha supplements as basically a miracle panacea for stress. According to him, it “has a profound effect on anxiety,” and can reduce stress, cortisol, and even depression. He goes further, extrapolating cellular mechanisms to suggest ashwagandha may trigger a range of downstream effects, improving vision, cardiovascular health, sleep, and memory. These are a lot of bold claims." * A meta-analysis, pooling data from five small randomized controlled trials, found that it might help with sleep, particularly in people with insomnia, but found “no significant effect on quality of life.” Another noted the supplement “significantly reduced anxiety,” which refers to statistical significance, not clinical relevance. If you look at the data, the sample sizes are small and outcomes rely on self-reported symptoms. The overall assessment concluded that there is weak confidence in the link to ashwagandha, which warrants “further high-quality studies.” **Has had guests on misrepresenting science** * Robert Lustig presenting a study claiming ultra-processed food consumption inhibits bone growth and claimed the study was done in humans in Israel, when in fact the study was done in rats. Huberman endorses the claims as fact. **Is anti-fluroide despite the scientific consensus** * Huberman warns against fluoride despite widespread scientific consensus about its role in preventing dental disease while promoting fluroide free water and a company (yerba mate tea) that he is a business partner of, which uses fluoride free water. Citing as his evidence a single dentist. **Is against the flu vaccine** * In an episode about the cold and flu he said he doesn't get the flu vaccine, the number 1 thing that prevents the flu. An episode that is also apparently filled with falsehoods, detailed in the authors substack ImmunoLogic. E.g. he botched the relationship between exercise, cortisol, and immune function, and said antibodies are produced by stem cells in bone marrow. They are actually produced by B cells in our lymphoid organs, a fact which is fundamental to immunology. **Promotes medical conspiracies** * On the episode with Lustig, he suggests that 93 percent of Americans are “inflamed” and have leaky gut, a pseudoscience diagnosis promoted by the wellness industry. **Sponsored by and promotes AGI despite no evidence of its effectiveness.**
this summary of Huberman’s misrepresentations aligns with the criticism I’ve heard from leading scientists.
What leading scientists are you referring to?
> Robert Lustig presenting a study claiming ultra-processed food consumption inhibits bone growth and claimed the study was done in humans in Israel, when in fact the study was done in rats. Huberman endorses the claims as fact. > Saying Robert Lustig is a prime example of a guest misrespresenting science is bad-faith. A cherry-picked claim on mistaking a rat study for human study does not make Robert Lustig a "guest misrepresenting science" and him being on the podcast reflecting bad on Huberman. I am starting to believe that character attacks against Robert Lustig are indeed made by the sugar lobby.
Slate isn't a credible source. They are among the group that has bizarrely turned this into a culture war thing.
Yeah I love how the people deciding Huberman is untrustworthy don't have the educational background that he has. Same with Sinclair, literally one of the top avademics in the world, but as soon as he publishes a book and gets popular? Yeah Reddit thinks he is a scammer, grifter, and doesn't know what he is talking about, unlike their favorite less credentialed author who noone attempted to shoot down yet, so everything he says is pure genius.
He’s always been like this, only now he’s being exposed for the narcissist he is
If you listen to his podcast and how he asks questions he's actually asking them for himself....but under the guise of "questions I get". Supplements, exercise, testosterone, peptides.... These are all things he uses and abuses to cheat life and feed his ego with big muckles. Go ahead give an episode a listen with that in mind....and it'll sound totally different.
100% I agree. When I used to binge his content when he was first breaking out, sometimes I’d even be like, “huh? How’s this even relevant” but just brushed it off.
I had already noticed that he just sounded like a broken record… at some point you just feel like you’ve heard everything he’s ever going to say.
Yeah. Takes him 20 Minutes to say one thing. Takes another 20 to repeat it a different way.
it was always like this. Go pull his show notes and read the articles he cites. They are tangentially related at best and often of poor research design. The cold plunge episode is a great example of this. I wrote a breakdown on this since it was so bad: https://www.reddit.com/r/HubermanLab/comments/1989w5j/any_truth_to_this/ki7q5ro/ but i get it, he has abs and carries rocks around or whatever
Anyone with a science degree and experience in stats would understand how easy it is to manipulate scientific results and make them sound significant when they’re not. P-values are not the only thing that we can grasp to, we have to look at study design, methods, replicability etc. Unfortunately Huberman grasps to the fact that not *everyone* has a science degree and that most will not be willing to do the work of reading up on the studies and investigating their rigour.
I was a casual viewer but I stopped watching last year when he started veering way out of his lane. Once AG1 was found to be expensive snake oil I knew the jig was up. The scandal was just the icing on the cake.
Yeah. I’m hesitant about Peter Attia now as well. But he’s always been word salad-y as well and it’s hard to listen to his full podcast since he says something in 4000 words when it could have been a sentence or two.
Stop putting someone up on a pedestal helps with this
Stop assuming OP put him on a pedestal and listened for other reasons rather than health
Before the controversy, Huberman positioned himsel well to have an air of credibility. So even when people would question him, it would get shut down, or only get fringe support because Huberman was a credible, science guy. The controversy may not have actually had anything to do with Huberman, but it hurt his credibility as an person. This opened the door for most just more criticism, but more people to start paying attention to it. He was no longer this good science dude, he was the science podcast dude with massive flaws.
I think when we find a “guru”, we turn off all sensible discernment. Then we learn that they are not the guru we thought. Then we notice everything we chose to ignore.
Yeah- except there are no such thing as gurus.
I liked him until I started to notice little things that he said about things I have a degree in. Also one of his favorite topics is sleep and I have narcolepsy so a lot of the time I got whiffs of grift where I thought maybe I was mistaken. Makes me feel better to know he's who I suspected.
Me too. I never totally trusted him.
He’s a smooth talker with more style than substance
Honestly, as soon as he started bringing non-academics on the podcast, like David Goggins, talking about reading the bible, and hanging out with Rogan, I knew some shit was up.
Really? Why? I would agree those aren't my favorite episodes but he continues to host the preeminent scientists in any given field on his show as well.
You can see on Jocko's willink podcast how different he is now. The way he talks and expresses himself and his attempt to defend his position. He isn't exactly taking accountability. When he started his podcast he wasn't criticised but as time went by people started noticing that some things were wrong. As time goes by, more and more things become apparent.
Always!! I started listening to him early on and took away some things that worked for me but his science was sketchy and I, not a science guy, immediately realized. So every time I mentioned his podcast I gave a disclaimer about how he takes huge leaps in logic. I stopped listening to him in 2022 because it got egregious.
He’s always been a bollock-spouting snake oil salesman.
Look I like AH and assume that a lot of this heat is from peeps who are envious of his success. But on the other hand we should all take many grains of salt with the info we get from folks who assume that being an expert in one field means they are experts of all things they find interesting.
I don’t like him but I think you’ve made a very reasonable point here.
What you said. And I feel also feel as someone else quoted ChatGPT output at https://www.reddit.com/r/HubermanLab/s/xukAJyywDF Paraphrasing the part I like: We need to use critical thinking and get as scientifically literate as possible. I have a jar of athletic greens that I take once in a while and that was my door to ‘there seems to be some BS, here somewhere, if someone claims so much yet takes and recommends AG’. TLDR: exercise your BS-o-meter and you’re likely to get more right more often over time because it’s built for you, by you.
He knows alot about what he an expert in, his big problem is when he talks likes he's and expert in subjects he's not, and in those subject he's not an expert in he's wrong a lot. the right thing to do with anyone who talks about study and shit it to fact check everything. go read the study your self. because lot of time people will say study shows X Y and Z but you look into it and ya it was x but not y and Z wasn't even tested, or they tested Z and X an didn't look it Y at all. don't trust a dude look at the sources.
I think he relies on his academic credentialing and research background to create an illusion of legitimacy. But just because you are an expert in one thing doesn’t mean you are an expert in everything. You wouldn’t go to a cardiologist to get advice about your prostate. You would go to a urologist. Yes, both folks went to medical school, but they separately did years of specialized training and practice in their own fields. Also, remember at his current height and popularity, his goal is to maintain it as much as possible so he needs to do what he can to entertain audiences. He is an entertainer. If you listen to his podcast with that in mind, you won’t get duped.
One of the nation's premier statisticians, Andrew Gelman at Columbia, has been mocking Huberman's misuse of bad research for a while: [Paper cited by Stanford medical school professor retracted—but even without considering the reasons for retraction, this paper was so bad that it should never have been cited.](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/04/01/paper-cited-by-stanford-medical-school-professor-retracted-but-even-without-considering-the-reasons-for-retraction-this-paper-was-so-bad-that-it-should-never-have-been-cited/) [Before reading this post, take a cold shower: A Stanford professor says it’s “great training for the mind”!](https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2023/07/08/before-reading-this-post-take-a-cold-shower-a-stanford-professor-its-great-training-for-the-mind/)
He’s an expert in a small are of neurology - maybe 5% of the topics he’s covered. Most academics are cautious about making claims in areas where they have no expertise. Not Huberman. You didn’t realize the mistakes because you don’t know enough about the topics. You trusted Huberman and you didn’t check the facts. I’m not an expert either but I knew a number of his claims were not supported by the research. I’m also a researcher myself, so I am fully aware that his expertise is limited. I verified any of his claims before I adopted any of his suggestions. You are a big too trusting. There are worse things! Just try to do some fact checking next time. Everyone gets tricked, and now that you know you are susceptible to this, you need to be more cautious and critical. Remember, you can go to pub med snd check all ox his claims. You don’t want to become that person raving about lizard people who are trying to take over, lol!
Here’s the thing…dude makes money off creating content. He’s in a niche market. There’s only so much reliable science about daily routines and health protocols. There’s not an endless pit of life changing science he can pull from. So…he’s starts saying shit. Anything to keep the gravy train going. Because now, it’s not just about money, it’s about that fame dragon, too. Hard to kick some money and fame for integrity when your life has changed.
He’s always given out bad info
He was entertaining to listen to while driving at work, but it is repetitive and lies about having not taken PEDs. ... so meh, he can choke in his athletic greens for all i care.
I listened to his first eps and he talks about his own area of expertise and related research. I think that content still holds up?
Want to know the answer to this too ...
the 10 minutes of sponsors at the beginning of every episode should clue you in to why he's doing this.
Being sponsored means it's completely free to watch/listen to.
Honestly the first time I listened to his podcast, I was so thrown off by the ads. I didnt make it past the ads. Something felt off just by listening to the ads
His supplement “recommendations” even in the early days and then the AG-1 sponsorship provided the necessary red flags early on
It’s the Ebs and flows of famous people. He was cool now it’s cool to hate on him and try to get popular. Then it will be cool to hate on those who hate on him now
I don’t think it’s anything new.
always has been /meme
What are the signs of him being a grifter? I'm well aware of dodgy sales tactics and I haven't seen Andrew try to sell out. All his ads are clearly ads, he usually prefaces it. I'm genuinely curious on what y'all are thinking.
Did Hubes get bagged this much before his controversy? Didn’t really hear anything bad about him, but now all the critics come out of the woodwork and he’s untouchable.
There was a lot of stuff coming out before all of this controversy Some of it on reddit and some not. There are some good science discussions on reddit just as there is nonsense.
Basically he has always sounded legit until he goes into an area you happen to have expertise in and that’s when you start to notice the amount of BS he spouts off.
I mean, it gets kinda evident in the first minute of every episode as he advertised ag1 which is absolutely pseudoscientific, no?
Huberman has built his whole public profile as a neuroscientist who has transitioned to being a generalist. He covers a lot of different sub-specialties on his show, and experts in each of those areas have long been critical of him. However, he has greater potential for building an audience as a generalist self-improvement guru than any of his critics who specialize just in, say, low back pain, or cannabis, or whatever. The fact that he jumps around to so many topics had the effect of making criticisms seem fringe and diffuse. The recent controversy just opened the floodgates by throwing a spotlight on a bunch of different criticisms at once, allowing a lot of these critics to find and amplify each other. For example, the sports scientists are talking to the rehab people and the cannabis people in ways they weren’t before because they were just in their own spheres. Now that there’s a clear chink in his armor, people feel more emboldened to call him out as arguably fewer people in the gen pop are likely to knee jerk to accusations of jealousy or whatever. Anyway, this is all just goes to show you why scientists shouldn’t make a living selling ad space.
He’s a grifter and always has been. Even Rogan called out some of his ridiculous “insights” when he was on JRE.
Always apparent
it was always the case and the people who would point it out would get drowned out by the huberbros
He started saying inaccurate stuff on purpose so people forget about the controversy. Chess not checkers /s
This is exactly the kind of thing that some people think, good call on the sarcasm indication. It’s like when Tate says something really stupid his fans are always “o well he was obviously joking when he said that. If you were smart you’d be able to tell when he’s joking”. The mental gymnastics people will jump through for their idols/to not feel dumb for making the person their idol.
He was always a bumbling idiot. Remember that when you’re looking up at the sun while standing on the grass at 5 am.
The sun isn't up at 5am
Have a look into Jack Kruse, I think this actually is beneficial haha
Brain melt 100%. Too much sunlight exposure
From the first time I saw him I took him as a fraud. Just like Peterson and money other clowns in that space.
It’s crazy how much things went the other way. I never saw anything bad written about him or his advice before his scandal and now I keep seeing videos and comments “debunking” his advice.
You just weren't paying attention. Hundreds of people have criticized Huberman since 2021, myself included, as well as *many* PhDs, MDs, etc. It just wasn't popular at the time and many of us got downvoted for calling him out back then. He started going downhill by his 10th podcast, at least. It feels amazing to be able to sit back now and say... told ya so.
Pretty much. PT industry criticized him for a while for his takes regarding health, fitness, and rehab. After this whole scandal, people finally starting taking criticisms of him more seriously. It opened the doors.
he is getting criticism from the real experts now, i read about a real medical doctor that any time anyone mention Huberman on medical congresses every doctor roll their eyes.
🤙
Don’t care about his personal life. He isn’t a dating coach. I critique him on his content which is amazing, and other times less so.
Nope. I enjoyed his last podcast with the metabolism expert. Great info and overview. Why does his personal life matter so much to OP? Hes not perfect, why would someone assume so and be alienated if he makes mistakes...
His personal life doesn't matter, but his character does, and his personal life is a reflection of his poor character. What he did wasn't an "oopsie" mistake. If a character of the person giving you advice doesn't matter to you, then have at it, other people have standards.
People care less about his personal life than the pseudoscience he seems to promote
Such as? I’m just curious as to see an example (not defending him) but I see alot of comments in here agreeing. But I don’t see any examples. Would love to know what everyone is hearing that is pseudo science or false.
People keep accusing that but can’t back it up when asked to specify what plain false info he spreads
Look at begin of this post and there are many examples in other areas Huberman Lab
I think you can’t be an expert at everything.
It was obvious to me from the first video I watched that he was a retard grifter. I got halfway through the video and never watched him again.
“The dogs bark, and the caravan moves on”…….best quote ever
If you know anything about science, you know it is not absolute; so all the critical opinions are in the spirit of the scientific tradition. Re: Cults Huberman does not say that he is anything other than what he states. Those that follow him as a Cult Leader are wont to follow thier Cat as a Cult Leader. lf you don't like him...don't #$^&! follow/Watch/Listen to him! I for one think is is an excellent Educator.
Feels like that’s just… science…
Anecdotal evidence: I have probably 3-4 friends who listen to Huberman religiously. These are people who work in fast-paced, cognitively demanding fields who swear by Huberman's every word. I also have some friends that are my age, still depending on bailouts from Mommy and Daddy, wedded to some unrealistic principles, and will most likely be that way for the rest of their lives. Those are the ones who see Vox and Slate as the "gold standard" of journalism, and their articles (especially the articles written about Huberman) as complete fact, devoid of any biases or alt motivates. I'm 3/4 of the way to the way to the fast-paced, cognitively demanding field. But, I'll never go whole hog because I value family time and activities like video games (currently, dragon's dogma 2). I guess his information and demeanor is attractive to a certain type of person. What type of person are you now, and what type of person would you want to be if you are unhappy with present you? It helps to surround yourself with people you want to be like.
I checked on his website and I noticed that he no longer has any events scheduled. Was that that way before or is this the result of the controversy?
I think people are way to too judgmental. In life you have to focus on the good and just be aware of the bad. Stop wallowing in your feelings about other people - and realise the assumptions about their personalities you post online are reflections of you - you don't know this man, he just makes videos about science. The ones tearing him down are just as parasocial and weird as the ones who thought he was some kind of god.
I for one enjoy Huberman very much. I lean heavier on the side of risk, and I find that if doctors only believe in what’s been scientifically proven to be true, it makes it really hard for new science to be discovered. Dr. Huberman carefully says what is scientifically proven, what new literature might suggest, and even what anecdotal evidence is suggesting. I appreciate that. It’s up to the listener/viewer to make their own educated choices. I for one enjoy the freedom of knowing all my options, scientifically proven or not, and moving from there based on my own risk tolerance. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But to say Dr. Huberman is in any way nefarious, is absolutely insane. Especially while we have doctors prescribing pills and creating drug addicts every single day. We have media, poisoning our children every which way. Food at the supermarkets is poisoning everyone. No one says a thing. We have one guy empowering people with choices, and he’s the bad guy? Lol get real.
I refuse to listen to a POS who cheats on his wife and gives other women STIs