[doo_daa]

This is an amazing piece of work and as others have said, the site and the UI are perfect.

On a side note, Huberman Labs bothers me. I was an avid listener to the early episodes. As I have ADHD, some of his explanations of the brain chemistry involved in attention and motivation were fascinating. But in one of the early-ish episodes he said some completely ridiculous about acupuncture (that it worked) that makes me think he has no real critical thinking skills.

I hope anyone out there listening to him and thinking about applying any of the approaches he talks about just takes the time to see whether any other sources say they have real-world effects.

To the credit of the author, this tool highlights the exact thing I'm talking about. Try searching for...

"How does acupuncture work?"

"Acupuncture involves taking needles and sometimes electricity and or heat as well and stimulating particular locations on the body. Through these maps of stimulation that have been developed over thousands of years, mostly in Asia, acupuncture can reduce inflammation in the body by stimulating the body in particular ways at particular sites on the body, liberating certain cells and molecules that enhance the function of the immune system and potentially can be used to combat different types of infection."

[Handprint4469]

+1 to this. Huberman has the bad habit of constructing grand narratives that match his beliefs about health and reality, and packaging them as podcast episodes based on science. The only problem is that "based on science" might mean a single low-powered study, which Huberman cites and over-generalizes as if it was rock-solid fact. See this[0] discussion on Huberman's subreddit for more context.

Another example is his episode with Matthew Walker[1] (author of Why We Sleep), and his other episodes where he gives sleep advice citing Walker as an authority. The problem is that Walker's work is not good[2][3] (riddled with errors at best, fraudulent at worst).

To be clear: I'm sure a lot (if not the majority) of what Huberman says is correct, or at least matches our current scientific understanding. The problem is that some things are incorrect, and the layman has no way of knowing which is which (especially since all the content is presented with the same high-certainty "science-based tools" tone)

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/andrewhuberman/comments/smnnb0/crit...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbQFSMayJxk

[2] https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850

[doo_daa]

+1

[nopinsight]

Do you claim that acupuncture, a practice with significant use for thousands of years and supporting scientific studies, is invalid because it goes counter to your belief? [1][2]

Prof Huberman is an expert and he reads up on relevant studies before talking about something. Even though he may occasionally make mistakes (who doesn't?), your evidence to the contrary, if any, should be at least as strong as his.

Moreover, accusing that an accomplished scientist lacks critical thinking skills should require substantial evidence.

[1] https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture-what-you-need-t...

[2] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...

and there are many other links one can easily find.

[doo_daa]

You are right and everyone makes mistakes and I'm sure much of the Huberman Lab content is great. I don't claim that acupuncture is invalid because it goes against my belief. I claim that it does not work because there are no credible studies that show that it does. The links you have provided are not to studies, they are to organisations that promote/sell acupuncture. [Edited to correct a typo]

[nopinsight]

Thanks for your explanation of the rationale.

The links I provided are to trustworthy organizations in healthcare who usually practice evidence-based medicine.

There are many studies referenced here: https://www.evidencebasedacupuncture.org/acupuncture-scienti...

This one is published in Cell: https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(20)30532-8

But of course, one can always find faults in most single studies. It's the accumulative amount of evidence that supports the claim that acupuncture often work for certain types of syndromes. Note that in medicine, few things have irrefutable proof as in math or even engineering.