00:00:59.020Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:09.020There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:17.120I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:22.300So this is part two of our episode on Dr. Andrew Huberman.
00:01:26.040If you have not listened to part one, you're probably going to want to listen to that before you listen to this to have the context.
00:01:32.080But to recap, Andrew Huberman is a very famous, very popular podcaster and neuroscientist who has been giving guidance to millions of people on how to hack their way to a better life.
00:01:43.940New York Mag just published a piece with the stories of six women in Dr. Huberman's life who alleged that he mistreated them and also looking at some of his questionable science and ethical practices.
00:01:55.100like endorsing dubious supplements. I'm joined by my producer, Mike, who is also a scientist
00:02:01.160to get into why we're all so quick to build up a lot of people into gurus.
00:02:07.080You and I were talking about this off mic, Mike, weird thing to say, about what exactly you think
00:02:12.940is going on here, right? So after doing all my research for this episode, I have totally changed
00:02:18.180my mind. I go back to this episode that we did early in Tangodi's history with Afoma Uzoma,
00:02:25.440who was formerly of Pinterest. She developed the platform's first ever medical misinformation
00:02:29.680policy. And in our conversation, she told me that it's really not that deep. Like a lot of the people
00:02:34.860who push medical misinformation are just scammers, right? They're just using fear or whatever,
00:02:41.220or like junk science to get people to give them money for whatever scam supplement or scam course
00:02:47.460they're selling or whatever and i think i'm kind of coming around to the fact that maybe huberman
00:02:52.440is like a little bit of a scammer like like maybe it's not like like maybe it's not that deep he is
00:02:57.860just like a snake oil salesman who gets rich from selling snake oil so he is using his scientific
00:03:04.340credentials to boost that snake oil yeah i agree i think that's a big piece of it here right like
00:03:10.600Like, it's not in dispute that he is aggressively promoting supplements that do not have evidence base to demonstrate their effectiveness.
00:03:20.460And he's getting rich off that, right?
00:03:22.720That's like literally, you know, I guess it's not literally, but it is a direct analogy to selling snake oil.
00:03:33.880I do think that he's a little bit more interesting or different than a lot of your garden variety scammers, just because he's so much more educated and is like a bona fide scientist making scientific contributions and seems to be a very introspective person.
00:03:53.580So, like, I'm just so fascinated the story he tells himself to justify selling that snake oil.
00:04:00.260Well, Andrew Huberman's whole thing is like a storytelling exercise about himself, like a myth making exercise about himself. Like the sort of story that he tells about himself is that he was a troubled kid. His parents handled his divorce in a way that left him neglected and like unparented.
00:04:19.280His parents kind of dispute that, but whatever. And that he was sent to sort of a facility for
00:04:25.780troubled youth and that talk therapy is what saved him. And he wanted to dedicate his life
00:04:32.420to like helping others because of that. And he got into Stanford despite the fact that he was
00:04:37.260this like troubled youth who was essentially unparented. The piece says, what does seem
00:04:41.880certain is that in adolescence, Andrew became a regular consumer of talk therapy. In therapy,
00:04:46.480one learns to tell stories about one's experience.
00:05:16.200when I have to do ad reads is like, if I didn't do these ad reads, the people who make my podcast
00:05:22.680would not be able to be paid. I would not be able to be paid. The show would not be able to go on.
00:05:26.900And so that's the story I tell myself when I'm doing ad reads for our sponsors, all of whom I
00:05:32.220love and respect very much. But I think that's the story that I have to tell myself to feel okay
00:05:38.340about doing these ad reads, even though nobody likes ads. I think it's different when you are
00:05:42.900a scientist telling yourself a story that makes it okay to use your credentials as a scientist
00:05:49.260to maybe lead people into things that are risky.
00:05:52.660Yeah, especially when you are publicly preaching introspection and discipline and accountability.
00:06:00.000Those all seem like virtues that maybe he should take a deeper look at.
00:06:04.420Yeah, this is kind of going off script here.
00:06:06.680But like you were saying how the popular guru who doesn't take their own advice and is not living the values that they preach in public, that is such a well-worn thing that it's almost a cliche at this point.
00:06:19.560I wonder what it is about Huberman that makes it so hard to see this well-worn trope playing out before our eyes.
00:06:31.580Because I think that's in part kind of what's going on here with Huberman.
00:06:34.920But it's so interesting to me how people are like, but he's a scientist, but he's introspective, but he's very thoughtful. He's different. Maybe it's just the power of marketing, the power, how people really want to believe that what he's doing is so much different than the Dr. Oz's of the world because of the way he packages it so effectively as being different.
00:06:53.700Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I haven't listened to his podcast, but, you know, in the research for doing doing this, you know, I read a couple articles that were talking about it and all of them mentioned when he's interviewing guests or speaking in public.
00:07:12.680you know, it's characterized by humility and kindness and compassion. And I could imagine
00:07:19.060that all of those would be things that would disarm a audience and make them feel like the
00:07:27.040person could be trusted, right? And feel more connected to them. Like, humility is super
00:07:33.100powerful. But even that reminds me of the way these women say that he used that same kind of
00:07:41.600language to control them. You know, that's sort of like, like at one point when one of the women
00:07:47.180realizes that he cheated on her, he texts her like something along the lines of, I hear you
00:07:52.560and I'm willing to hear you for as long as you need, which again, it's almost like therapy speak
00:07:58.860to get away with bad behavior. And I wonder if that's part of it, like using a certain kind of
00:08:04.040disarming language and disarming presentation and disarming, you know, vibe to really affect
00:08:11.520effectively trick people into trusting you and to trick them into not seeing what is so obviously
00:08:18.080in front of their own eyes or happening in their own ears. Some of this stuff is not in dispute.
00:08:24.020It's not in dispute that he takes money from supplement companies. It's not in dispute that
00:08:28.140supplement companies are notoriously not transparent and rely on junk science, if any
00:08:34.320science at all. Those things are not in dispute. So the fact that people are like, no, he would
00:08:38.680never it's like he would not dispute that that is what's happening yeah it's a good question what
00:08:43.000is it about him that makes people like him and want to follow his advice but clearly he's done
00:08:49.600very well at it and i think it is an important question for us all to consider i think part of
00:08:56.560it's gotta be that he's hot probably helps like he's like jacked he has glasses like i don't know
00:09:01.780like i think he's someone that maybe a lot of the male listeners in his audience want to see
00:09:08.140themselves in like who would not want to be like oh yeah i'm this like jacked ripped guy who has
00:09:13.880glasses but is also a scientist and like can maybe juggle women in an unethical way like i think that
00:09:19.280men are identifying with him in a certain way and that is maybe making it hard for them to see
00:09:25.700what is happening so plainly right out and open yeah that's a good point yeah there's a lot of
00:09:31.760ways in which the life he's leading feels aspirational. I completely agree. So Dr. Andrea
00:09:38.800Love, her piece just makes him sound like a good old-fashioned scammer. Again, I will link to it
00:09:44.360in the show notes. You should definitely read it. So she points out that he is somebody who uses
00:09:48.360dubious science to put people off of accepted medical interventions like fluoride or vaccines,
00:09:54.680even when there is broad medical consensus about it in service of suggesting an alternative that
00:10:00.680he has a financial stake in. So Dr. Love says that Huberman uses false balance, the fallacy that
00:10:06.160equal and opposite sides always exist. Take his thoughts on fluoride. While fluoride has been
00:10:11.520used for decades to prevent dental disease, Huberman gives the impression that there is an
00:10:15.620ongoing debate among experts about its use and reasons for his listeners to be careful about how
00:10:20.280much fluoride-containing tap water they consume. During his Oral Health podcast episode, Huberman
00:10:25.700undermines consensus data on fluoride, endorses fluoride-free toothpastes, as well as a Yerba
00:10:30.680Mate tea company that uses fluoride-free water, and which he is a business partner of, and cites
00:10:35.820a dentist who spreads fear about fluoride as his expert reference. Huberman positions this for his
00:10:41.660listeners as information to make the best decision, as though we all need to be carefully thinking
00:10:46.440about our fluoride levels. Yeah, again, cherry-picking. Here it sounds like he cherry-picked
00:10:50.700particular expert who has an ax to grind about fluoride while ignoring the vast majority of
00:10:57.860dentists who are in consensus that fluoride is a positive thing to promote oral health.
00:11:04.500And when we were talking about his cold and flu episode, where he was talking about how he doesn't
00:11:08.220always get the flu shot because it is not effective unless the shot protects from that exact strain of
00:11:14.180flu going around that year, which is not totally accurate. You were like, well, why would he do
00:11:18.500that? What does he have to gain in discrediting vaccines? And again, if you believe Dr. Andrea
00:11:23.320Love, it comes down to those supplements that he sells. Having a paid sponsor is not a disqualifier
00:11:28.780in and of itself, she writes, but when your financial conflicts of interest seem to dictate
00:11:32.700your content, it should be. After dismissing legitimate data in the flu episode, his lengthy
00:11:38.360quote, science-backed discussion to prevent colds and flu boiled down to an extended commercial
00:11:43.880for taking supplements. So all of me has me wondering, which I think is the point of the
00:11:49.020New York Mag piece, why do we look to anybody for their life advice? Why do we make people
00:11:54.260into gurus in the first place? It does not surprise me that Huberman really got famous,
00:11:59.480famous in the 2021 era of COVID. We were all sort of alone and disconnected and looking for
00:12:06.480some solution or some antidote to that. You weren't sleeping well, you weren't eating well,
00:12:11.040maybe like the vibes were terrible. So in a lot of way, I think the public, we were just like
00:12:16.380easy marks during that time. Yep. Just a bunch of dupes with money.
00:12:21.680Yeah. Looking for a quick fix. Yep. Rude looking for a solution.0.79
00:12:27.040And you and I kind of talked about this off mic, but it's one of the reasons why
00:12:31.200like life advice content, like I'm not somebody who really, unless I'm really having a dark time
00:12:38.400of desperation. I'm not someone who listens to lifestyle or life advice podcasts. I don't like
00:12:46.780career advice podcasts. I just don't like this idea that one person has a one-size-fits-all
00:12:53.080solution. This is my opinion. I don't think life works that way. I think people are really complex.
00:12:57.180People have very complex motivations and desires and needs and hang-ups. I don't see how a stranger
00:13:02.500could speak to that in any way that is effective. I'm not saying that anybody should like,
00:13:07.500Like you're a bad person if you listen to that. I just feel like anybody who is like wearing a blazer and crossing their arms and being like, I have the answer. Something in me automatically is like suspect of that.
00:13:18.340I 100% agree. Yeah, anybody who says that they have the answer, huge red flag. And I'm somebody who loves learning from people. There are so many smart people in the world who have insight, who have wisdom, who talk about interesting philosophical and ethical questions that help me understand the world and help me decide how to live my life.
00:13:43.980But I feel like there's a very fine line where that crosses over into solutions and therefore you should do XYZ. You should buy this supplement. You should adopt my patented life routine. Once they start hawking a specific solution, that red flag gets a little bit higher. And then when that solution is something that you can buy, it's time for me to walk away.
00:18:11.340Look across the balance of all of the evidence to reach conclusions based on the evidence that's there in a transparent evaluation of the methods that were used to create those conclusions.
00:18:21.640It's much more boring than an Instagram reel or a YouTube video, but that's how scientific conclusions get reached. And I think that's maybe why it's so easy and feels so dangerous for people who have scientific authority due to their institutional positions and just take that over to Instagram and popular culture to start dispensing advice that is not within their area of expertise.
00:18:50.700Yes. And I think that like that's the real scandal that I think the piece is trying to highlight. The scandal is not to me like how he treated women badly in his personal life. It is that he enjoys this pedestal of like men of science and knowledge and enjoys all of the respect that comes with that while also behaving in ways that are like really small and like maybe unethical and maybe like anti-science.
00:19:16.500He wasn't trying to unlock the science of all of us living our best lives. Maybe he was a little bit, but it sounds like it was also an enterprise to personally enrich himself, get in control women, and have fame. Like I said, small. That's not a super respectable man of science behavior. That is like small man driven by desire and vice behavior.
00:19:42.100Yeah. I mean, if you were to, you know, take a stoic approach to it, one should be leading a virtuous life. And none of those things sound very virtuous.
00:19:51.420Ultimately, nobody likes to pursue vice and hedonism and desire more than your girl right here. So I'm not judging, but to create an entire platform around the importance of discipline and avoiding this and avoiding that, while you are privately courting your version of those things yourself.
00:20:12.400Like, I don't think he's somebody who was, like, preaching not drinking and then drinking alcohol, but he is somebody who preaches, like, avoid dopamine and then, like, clearly has these, like, dopamine-driven relationships with women that are very chaotic based on lies.
00:26:14.000It is so interesting, really, because, you know, I wonder if a lot of the people who
00:26:18.480listen to Huberman really identified with him or maybe his lifestyle was like really
00:26:23.320aspirational to them and so when he is being called out in this way maybe they feel personally
00:26:29.340threatened and that is why they are coming to his defense so specifically like Lex Friedman was like
00:26:34.880he is a personal friend of mine and this is a hit job again I was not able to read Lex Friedman's
00:26:41.040entire statement because he has me blocked but this idea that because you are a listener of
00:26:44.840his podcast or even like Lex like you know him personally that you would know the intimacies of
00:26:49.700his like romantic life and how he shows up sexually and romantically like I have plenty of close
00:26:53.920friends and I don't know the ins and outs of how they get down sexually and romantically and I would
00:26:58.180never I would never pretend that I did right like I find it really interesting how many people are
00:27:04.200so loudly coming to his defense like I follow and enjoy plenty of podcasters that I don't personally
00:27:11.160know there is not one of them that I can think of that I would read like a long critical deep dive
00:27:17.440into their work and their history and their values, that I wouldn't come away thinking like,
00:27:21.640oh, maybe they had a few points. To see people summarily dismissing this as a hit job to defend
00:27:26.920Huberman like he is someone they know. And it's interesting how this has become this kind of
00:27:31.680culture wars thing where it's like, oh, they're just attacking him for no reason. And I'm not
00:27:38.160even going to like, it's all bunk, right? And so like, they're not even engaging with the pieces
00:27:43.960of the article that are not about his romantic life. The way that he talked about that colleague
00:27:49.040of his that was a woman, that's not about his romantic life. His relationship with AG1 and
00:27:53.620supplements, that's not about his romantic life. The questions about his own myth-making
00:27:57.880and his background, that's not about his romantic life. Are those not questions that
00:28:02.720need answers and deserve scrutiny for somebody who is bolstering themselves as a public guru?
00:28:07.600Yeah, it's not surprising that it has sort of been framed and is being talked about as yet another culture war of us versus them.
00:28:16.800I think another lens that we can look at it is earlier we made an analogy to conspiracy theories where his scientific rationale behind this or that solution is often like cherry picked.
00:28:29.760It'll be like a germ of truth in there, but then build this elaborate just so story around it that it sounds like in a lot of cases leads to the conclusion that you should buy some product that he's selling.
00:28:40.100And similarly here, his followers, I suspect a lot of them are true believers when confronted with a critical piece like this New York Mag article, just reject it. Right. The same way that when you present somebody who believes in a conspiracy theory with evidence that refused that conspiracy, they will, in most cases, just double down. And the conflicting evidence is somehow reinterpreted in a way that makes them believe in the conspiracy even more strongly. It feels like there's something similar going on here as well.
00:29:08.720Well, I can tell you who a lot of his defenders are saying is behind this hit piece. Big Pharma. Big Pharma doesn't like that Andrew Huberman is preaching the powers of meditation and sunlight and ice baths and supplements. They want us all hooked on the Big Pharma machine. And that's why New York Mag is like writing this like well-researched, well-written takedown of his life.
00:29:36.080Yeah, they're just a front for big pharma. I'm no big fan of the pharmaceutical industry. They do lots of pretty shady, harmful stuff, no question. But in this case, yes, dismissing this piece as a hit piece by big pharma, I feel like George Soros is just one step away in that causal chain of dismissive logic.
00:30:01.500Oh, totally. And side note, I feel like whenever this is a hit piece, an attack job by Big Pharma, whenever that is the go-to line of defense, it really tells me a lot about the audience that the person has cultivated.
00:30:14.860Because that was the same thing that they used to defend Joe Rogan when people like me were pointing out his use of misinformation in the podcast space.
00:30:23.540They were like, oh, like, he isn't down with the COVID vaccine.
00:30:27.560He's interested in alternatives to curb COVID.
00:30:32.880I feel like that tells me so much about the audience that you have cultivated and what they are about and what they value, what they don't value.
00:30:39.780Yeah, because it's not just listen to me.
00:31:01.780So in the fallout of all of this, people are really trying to come for the person who wrote
00:31:07.460the article, who is New York mag writer, Carrie Howley, who I love Carrie's writing. Like if you
00:31:13.620ever see a deep dive written by Carrie, go ahead and click it immediately. One of those writers0.99
00:31:18.040that if anybody ever calls me and is like, I'm fact checking a piece by Carrie Howley. I'd like
00:31:22.460to ask you a few questions. I will be very concerned. Yeah. But can confirm it is so well
00:31:29.740written. It was like a joy to read, even like setting the content aside, just the, the prose,
00:31:36.200the writing. It was refreshing. It was really nice. Yeah, totally agreed. So I hate to see
00:31:41.860Kerry being attacked in this way. Huberman retained the crisis PR firm called Scale Strategy.
00:31:47.700Fun fact, Scale Strategy is brought to us by one of the guys who handled the disastrous
00:31:52.740WeWork IPO and was fired soon after. So one of the folks who might be on Huberman's crisis PR
00:32:00.960campaign to navigate the fallout of this article. Something else I have seen is that a lot of his
00:32:06.580loudest defenders are saying, well, if Huberman has been juggling hot women this effectively,
00:32:13.240it means that the methods that he preaches on the podcast must be effective. He's really a
00:32:18.740masculine guy. They're applauding what he has been accused of doing. And that makes him more
00:32:26.240likable in their eyes. And that is what I mean. Like, that's the thing that I think that we're
00:32:30.700not coming right out and saying directly. I think that casual misogyny and sexism and gaslighting
00:32:36.880women and demanding submission of women, I think all of this stuff isn't something that the audience
00:32:43.980that he has cultivated isn't all bothered by. In fact, quite the opposite. I think to them,0.53
00:32:48.920this is a feature, not a bug. I think that they like this. I think that the way he is accused
00:32:53.940of treating these women is not removed from the content that he makes on the podcast. I think it's
00:33:00.200all one big, intricate quilt. And I think it's all related. Yeah. And the fact that they aren't
00:33:09.180more bothered by the deception that is at the very root of it is worrisome and unfortunate.
00:33:15.720You know, people can have different ideas about what dating and relationships and life should
00:33:22.120look like. But I feel like most people that I know in my personal life, even people who like have
00:33:27.980different political and social views than me, most people agree that deception is bad and you
00:33:33.080shouldn't use it. And it feels like there's something going on where public figures get a
00:33:39.780pass on that, that people would not allow peers or acquaintances in their everyday life.
00:33:46.200Oh, my gosh. I mean, I would argue that we are kind of in a golden era of scammers where people are willing to close their eyes to the way that the people that they follow, the people that they have upheld as aspirational, they are very willing to close their eyes to the way that those people are moving right in front of their faces in a way that is deceptive.
00:34:08.680This is a weird analogy, but there's this young Black Mormon trad wife influencer who is really famous for making videos of her baking in ballgowns to show off how much money she has, like shopping and blah, blah, blah.0.59
00:34:24.780And I got into an argument on threads with somebody, another Black woman, about this.0.64
00:34:29.020And she was like, people are hating on her because they hate to see a Black woman live a life of luxury.
00:34:34.180and like that's what she's doing and she's like being a good mom and people just hate to see that
00:34:38.200when it's a black woman and I was like well I'm a black woman and I don't hate to see that but this0.64
00:34:41.620woman is a content creator the whole thing is like artifice to make her money this isn't just0.98
00:34:47.420how she lives her life it's by nature performative so like I wasn't like getting down on this woman1.00
00:34:52.840but I was just saying like let's be honest that this woman is a content creator she is setting1.00
00:34:56.680up a tripod and lighting and wearing a specific outfit to do something performative to make money1.00
00:35:02.960And you would have thought that I called this woman a bad name.1.00
00:35:06.600She was like, how dare you say that?0.99
00:35:08.160And I was like, it's obviously performative.
00:35:10.680I don't even think that the woman in the videos would be like, oh, this is a realistic depiction of my life as someone who makes food for my kids.
00:35:18.640Like, I just couldn't believe that an adult would be so willing to play into the scam that is so obviously unfolding in front of her.
00:35:26.880Not to say this woman is scamming, but I was surprised to see an adult unwilling or unable to call this what it was, a money-making enterprise.
00:35:56.880so bridget i know that you like this story really got you you read a bunch of stuff you uh kept
00:36:09.600writing and writing and writing and writing uh and thank you for doing all that let's land this
00:36:14.900plane and bring it home what is it about this story that really speaks to you i think the story
00:36:19.680speaks to me for a lot of reasons. I think the response, it demonstrates how siloed and how
00:36:28.340charged everything is that you can't even deal with this story on its merits or pick out the
00:36:36.560pieces that you might think like, oh, well, that could be something. That the only way that people
00:36:40.700who are detractors of it can engage with it is as a hit job. Two, this is maybe so petty, but
00:36:47.000Like, it bums me out that this is what the podcast space looks like sometimes.
00:36:51.040That it's like, it's such a space where through marketing and a certain kind of language and appeal, people can really build huge, powerful platforms that maybe when you look a little closer are not so great.
00:37:06.640And maybe you look even closer, maybe they're a little bit dangerous.
00:37:10.180And so I think that's my main takeaway is that I think that we all deserve good content.
00:37:15.960Like, if you care about what you put in your body, part of that, I think, is that we deserve, like, good information. And we deserve good information from people who are not liars. And it sounds like from reading this piece that Huberman might be somebody who is so invested in personal myth-making and brand building and enrichment that he might be someone who is at risk for their platform causing some harm.
00:37:44.900And I think we got to look out for that.
00:38:11.500You can hit us up at hello at tangody.com.
00:38:13.100Yeah, I'm also so curious. If you listen to our show and you also listen to Huberman's show, we would love to hear your take. I know that there's a lot of good people who get a lot of value out of his content. And so we'd just love to hear your take about this. Please let us know.