#3068: Shane Idleman

Shane Idleman is a California-based pastor (Westside Christian Fellowship) and occasional contributor to outlets like the Christian Post (CP). For the latter, Idleman has for instance explained how science not only confirms the Bible but that the Bible would actually be a useful guide for science; Idleman has in mind for instance things like “[s]cience teaches that time, space, and matter must occur simultaneously – Genesis confirms it” (we suppose that only the number of words allotted to him by CP stopped him from explaining some details here), that “Job knew that springs were at the bottom of the ocean” and that “Job said that the earth free floats in space” (Idleman did somehow not mention the following passages in the Bible where God contradicts Job on his assertions and rebukes him for his insolence), that “Genesis disclosed that our bodies are made from the earth (28 base and trace elements). Psalms mentions the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics — ‘The universe will perish; they will all wear out like a garment’ ”, and fine-tuning (“the perfect distance of the sun from the earth at 93-million miles” points to a designer). One might accuse Idleman of some … selectivity in the choice of examples, but at least he does realize that some bits don’t fit so well. And the bits of science that cannot be fit with the Bible by shoehorning and hand-waving? Well, those can be safely dismissed: “Evolution is not a fact; it’s a theory” as ostensibly confirmed by Darwin himself, who “basically said, ‘I think this is what happened,’ when he wrote, On The Origin of Species”. And according to Idleman, “there is no fossil support, DNA confirmation, or any physical evidence anywhere”, which makes it ‘ironic’ that it is “taught in our school system as fact”. And when Idleman says that “many scientists from NASA Langley research center, as well as PhDs from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and so on” reject evolution; what he has in mind is this one, no less. At least he makes a good case for why we desperately need more science education in schools.

 

And it’s not like evolution is the only topic where Idleman has his own take on science. During COVID, Idleman e.g. warned Christians to be wary of both the COVID-19 vaccine and any other vaccines: “Is it wise to inject a virus directly into the bloodstream? Is vaccination truly about helping people or generating income? You be the judge,” said Idleman.

 

Otherwise, Idleman’s contributions to public debate reveal the type of perspective and level of reflection you’d expect from his take on science. Idleman for instance suggests that mass shootings are caused by “our sex-saturated culture” and the “sex and violence [that] is tied to zombies, witches, vampires, and horror movies”. Indeed, such entertainment might have even darker consequences, too, and he has for instance warned Christians against watching Game of Thrones because “if enchantments, witchcraft, familiar spirits and wizards are entertaining, something is clearly wrong. Darkness should not entertain.” He has also promoted pseudohistorian David Barton’s work; and like so many others in his position, Idleman is being heavily persecuted as demonstrated e.g. by the fact that i) he thinks there should be a religious test for office, and ii) there isn’t, which means that the US has “catered to political correctness” and that the courts have misinterpreted the idea of the separation of church and state, which again shows that “they” want to “silence the pulpit.” If that’s not persecution, it is unclear what is. You don’t need to ask him his views on marriage equality.

 

You can probably guess where he stands politically, but yes, Idleman is MAGA, and not only because he agrees with Trump’s policies but (predictably) because supporting Trump is “supporting a movement back to God”. Unfortunately, Trump is beset by the machinations of Satan, e.g. through “voter fraud, ballot harvesting and media giants railing against Trump” to such an extent that “only a sovereign act of God can bring about a re-election”. Trump’s victory in 2024 is accordingly clear evidence that he is chosen by God.

 

Diagnosis: Though you might think he’d be too daft and dumb even for the religious right, Idleman’s rants keep popping up in various contexts. He seems to have quite a bit of an audience, and one suspects that his nonsense is pitched at an intellectual level that hits the mark for a frightening number of people (he seems, after all, to tend to avoid the vulgar displays of hatred and murderlust you see from many other fundies pitching their stuff at a similar level).

 

#3067: Cynthia Hutchison

Therapeutic touch (TT) is a bullshit woo species of the bullshit woo known as energy medicine. The premise for the technique is bonkers, and reasonably systematic studies that bracket the fact that the premise for the technique is bonkers, have also shown the technique to be worthless in practice as well. One such study is this one, designed by then-9-year-old Emily Rosa as her fourth-grade science project, which made her the youngest researcher ever to have a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

 

Quacks and quackery-oriented healthcare practitioners were not happy with that study, however. Cynthia Hutchison, “DNSc, RN, CHTP/I, Research Coordinator for Healing Touch International, Inc., Lakewood, CO” (later Assistant Program Director), for instance claimed, in an “Official Response from Healing Touch International … to the April 1, 1998 JAMA article ‘debunking’ Therapeutic Touch” that the study was flawed because the researcher’s mother was a critic of TT and therefore biased and because a rigorous study like this didn’t take into account that the effectiveness of TT is a function of the practitioner’s intention of doing good for the patient: “What you do in your mind and heart far surpasses any kinesthetic experience in your hands”, said Hutchison: “Some practitioners sense a client’s energy intuitively or are able to see, or hear subtle aspects of (clairvoyance). Each person is unique in her or his abilities as a practitioner.” Or in other words: no study can debunk TT since it’s magic: practitioners shouldn’t worry about numbers or statistics or reason or facts but “embrace the mystery” and let go of “the need to understand”.

 

As for the alleged bias, it wasn’t a matter of study design flaws; rather, the problem was that since people in the Rosa household were critical of TT, their “thoughts may have blocked her own energy field from being perceived based on her belief that the practitioners could not be successful. Practitioners are keenly aware of people’s ability to block or close down their energy fields with their thoughts”. And to really drive it home, Hutchison attacked the study set up for its mechanistic underpinnings; Hutchison, however, appealed to quantum: as opposed to old-fashioned mechanistic ideas, “quantum physics of today describes us as fields within fields, as vibrating waves and particles, as equal to about 2 grains of sand in solid matter were we to be totally compressed.” It does … not. But as Hutchison’s sees it, therefore “[m]odern physics supports the use of energetic therapy, most notably in the sentences: ‘Thought precedes form. Thought is a form of energy. Attention (presence) changes the object being observed.’[she neglected to provide a reference] … Spirituality and science have been kept separate since the scientific era, but more and more we are seeing the holism of all creation, the connectedness of everyone and everything, and the re-emergence of science and spirituality as different perspectives of the same thing.” Wheee!

 

Then she recommended people to consult, instead of Rosa’s study, “Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber, MD, or some of Deepak Chopra’s books”. Oh, yes. Perhaps dimly realizing the somewhat flailing nature of her response, Hutchison finished by stating that “[w]e encourage solid research to study all aspects of energetic healing in order to understand how it can best serve humanity”. That sentence, however, is just a boring, baldfaced lie and thus a disappointing ending to an otherwise gloriously delusional stream-of-consciousness piece of choprawoo. It is, however, noteworthy that Hutchison was not only research coordinator for her … cult(?) but ostensibly taught all levels of the Healing Touch International curriculum, including Instructor Training and Advanced Practice 1 and 2. She is also the author of Healing Touch Meditations: Guided Practices to Awaken Healing Energy For Yourself and Others.

 

Diagnosis: A chaotic mess of incoherent feel-good New Age blather and pseudo-religious confusion. You’d think she’d be mostly harmless, but people – including real nurses – continue to get caught up in this twaddle.

 

Hat-tip: Kimball Atwood @ Sciencebased Medicine

 

#3066: Jessica Hutchins

Jessica Hutchins is an autism biomed quack and co-founder, with Daniel Neides, of Inspire Wellness, a private practice that offers a wide variety of quackery and pseudoscience-based nonsense, ranging from functional medicine to infrared sauna and intravenous nutrition, which is recommended for “heavy metal and chemical toxicity,” migraines, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, and what have you. They even offer something called the ‘Inspire Wellness Personalized Membership’, which is a type of (basically) concierge service typical of certain types of altmed practoces: neither Hutchins not Neides have admitting privileges at any hospital, and no, they don’t take Medicare, Medicaid, or health insurance, because what they offer is rubbish quackery that no insurance company is willing to reimburse.

 

Now, Hutchins did, in fact, train as an OBGYN, and she is an MD. According to herself, however, her “trajectory was forever changed when her oldest son, Josh, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in 2004 at the age of three. Demanding to uncover the answers to the cause and treatment of ASD, Jessica began her educational journey in the field of Functional Medicine,” which, as Hutchins sees it, is an area of medicine that “focuses on reversing chronic disease by understanding the complexity of the body at an energetic and cellular level”; it’s not like ‘functional medicine’ has a standard definition – typically, it is ‘make it up asyou go’ medicine that combines massive over-testing with quackery –  so practitioners like Hutchins are more or less free to use it to mean more or less whatever she wants. And yes, she claims to have cured Josh from his ASD diagnosis.

 

As her presentation of her narrative suggests, Hutchins is anti-vaccine; at least her testimony in favor of Ohio House Bill 193 (which would prohibit penalties for employees of hospitals and health care systems who refuse the flu vaccine) included several of the antivaccine movement’s greatest hits. And like so many quacks and alternative practitioners, Hutchins is concerned with nutrition, in particular children’s nutrition; in itself, that might sound reasonable, but instead of being reasonable, Hutchins’ recommendation for parents include: “For more info on eating toxin-free food and pushing food manufacturers to stop using these ingredients, check out foodbabe.com”. Oh, yes, she did.

 

Hutchins’s main claim to fame, however, is probably due to her partner David Neides (upcoming). Neides used to be Acting Medical Director of the Tanya I. Edwards Center for Integrative Medicine, Vice Chair and Chief Operating Officer of Cleveland Clinic Wellness, as well as the Associate Director of Clinical Education for The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM), no less, where he oversaw all clinical activities during years three through five of the medical school. Even a somewhat questionable institution like the Cleveland Clinic realized they needed to let him go in 2017, however, after he posted an insane anti-vaccine rant (‘Make 2017 the year to avoid toxins (good luck) and master your domain’) in which he suggested that vaccines cause autism and where he – yes – also cited Hutchins’s recommendations of the Food Babe. (Neides’s antivaccine breakdown was hardly surprising – once you’ve deluded yourself into thinking that your body needs help to remove unnamed “toxins”, you are well on your way to antivaccine pseudo- and antiscience).

 

Diagnosis: Yes, it’s another example of the allure of the dark side, and as usual it’s a process driven as much by a lack of reason as by a lack of integrity – Hutchins has a real education, but while she probably learned a bit, she understood nothing.

 

Hat-tip: Respectful Insolence

 

#3065: Steve Huston

The American Decency Association (ADA) is an extremist group of angry, paranoid conspiracy theory-oriented fundies that seeks “... to educate its members and the general public on matters of decency; to initiate, promote, encourage and coordinate activity designed to safeguard and advance public morality consistent with biblical Christianity”. It is generally allied with other fundie organizations like the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel and similar organizations, and yes: we have of course encountered them before.

 

Steve Huston is what seems to be a longtime staff writer for ADA (he has his own blog on their website). Though Huston covers a number of topics in his writings, it is consistently from a Christians-are-persecuted-in-the-US perspective; ‘persecution’ of course understood as the fact that people – even politicians – disagree with them in speech and action and are allowed to do so, that democracy sometimes lead to outcomes Huston doesn’t favor, and that the ADA cannot force other people to behave and think the way ADA thinks they should behave and think. But as Huston sees it, not only are leftists and Democrats (and Muslims – do not forget Muslims) vile and evil: there is nefarious agency at work here. Not only do leftists seek to undermine Christian America through immigration (which is why Huston wants government to e.g. deny entry into the US to Muslims and people supporting Jihad and socialism in order to protect the freedoms, like freedom of speech, that he values), they have been bamboozled into promoting the agenda of radical Islamists and Chinese communists, who are in cahoots to destroy America: Marijuana legalization, for instance, is as Huston sees it the result of the “Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their plethora of illegal ploys used as a means of attacking America from within”. And don’t get him started on the War on Christmas and the forces involved in that very real effort to persecute Christians. To make his case, Huston relies heavily on ‘information’ from an impressive number of entries in our Encyclopedia, e.g. Tucker Carlson, Frank Gaffney and Tony Perkins.

 

In particular, Huston is (but of course) worried about the gay agenda and who is really behind that one. Here, for instance, is Huston explaining how a graham cracker ad featuring a same-sex couple with their children clearly reveals the active hand of Satan himself. That one’s from 2014, but Huston is still, in 2026, sore about Obergefell and wants and hopes to see it reversed. Indeed, same sex marriage seems to be the only topic on which Huston is willing to take exception to his general praise for Trump to admit that Trump doesn’t quite deserve a perfect score.

 

Occasionally, Huston broaches topics related to science, too. Huston is, for instance, a creationist, and in order for his readers to form their own educated views on biological evolution, he recommends resources from Answers in Genesis, including (in particular) videos about their bogus distinction between ‘historical’ and ‘observational’ science. During COVID, he would promote resourcing offering misinformation about COVID vaccines and various antivaccine videos as well, because of course he did.

 

Diagnosis: Yet another paranoid fundie conspiracy theorist. His affiliation probably ensures that his nonsense is unlikely to reach much of an audience beyond other paranoid fundie conspiracy theorists, but he’s certainly not making things any better.

#3064: Warren Hurst

Dredging up some more old garbage here: Warren Hurst was – or is, for all we know – a member of the Sevier County Commission in Tennessee who got a bit of national attention back in 2019 for a seven-minute rant he did during a county commission meeting. One target was, of course, zeh gays – Pete Buttigieg in particular: “It’s time we wake up people […] We got a queer running for president, if that ain’t about as ugly as you can get,” said Hurst: “Look what we got running for president in the Democratic party. We can go over here to Hoss’s jail [Sevier County Sheriff] and get better people out of there than those running for democratic to be President of the United States.” Then, he presented his opinion on race: “I’m not prejudiced, a white male in this country has very few rights and they’re getting took more every day,” Hurst told the (all-white) county commission; later, in response to critics, he defended himself by saying that some of his best friends were African American; he nevertheless stood by his comments because he’s entitled to his opinions, which really isn’t the issue. Later, the Tennessee House of Representative passed a resolution to honor Hurst.

 

Diagnosis: Old, angry and stupid sod. The thing to worry about here is really all those in the audience who cheered and agreed, and those for whom this is just local politics as usual.

 

#3063: Steve Hurst

Steve Hurst is a longtime member of the Alabama House of Representatives representing the the 35th District, having served since 1998. That has given him plenty of time to do plenty of silly stuff, such as being the (sole) sponsor of Alabama’s House Bill 258 in 2018, which would, if enacted, allow teachers to present “the theory of creation as presented in the Bible” in any class discussing evolution, “thereby affording students a choice as to which theory to accept.” The bill would also ensure that creationist students would not be penalized for answering examination questions in a way reflecting their adherence to creationism, “provided the response is correct according to the instruction received.” The bill was clearly modeled on the Kentucky Revised Statutes 158.177, which was enacted in 1976 and seems to be still on the books in Kentucky despite its patent unconstitutionality. Hurst has otherwise received some attention for earlier proposals to require public school teachers to read a daily prayer in the classroom and to punish sex offenders with surgical or chemical castration (that one eventually passed in 2019, but will never be used since it sets up castration as a condition for parole and the crimes for which it can, in fact, be used are not eligible for parole anyways – the whole thing was, of course, just to show off some sort of character.)

 

Diagnosis: Wingnut fundie loon the old-fashioned way – the kind we used to cover a lot of a decade ago but today seem almost quaint. Still a loon, though.

 

#3062: Dale Hurd

Dale Hurd is a longtime broadcaster for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) – yes, that’s Pat Robertson’s old playground, and that pretty much sums up Dale Hurd, too. And although Hurd might sometimes come across as downright reasonable in today’s media environment, Hurd is far from reasonable. Hurd is, for instance, one of the central promoters of the Great Reset conspiracy popular in wingnut circles, and, firmly planted in great reset nonsense, he helped promote an impressive number of conspiracy theories and ridiculous, paranoid narratives about COVID. Otherwise, he is known for pushing usual wingnut nonsense, including climate change denialism (and yes, that includes the global cooling myth) and praise for the familiar line-up of authoritarian, anti-democratic state leaders.

 

Diagnosis: Yes, it’s very predictable, and his nonsense might, as mentioned, come across as almost reasonable compared to today’s wingnut standards. And that does make him somewhat dangerous, for by any sane standards, his nonsense is not remotely reasonable.

 

#3061: Sharon Hughes

Sharon Hughes is a wingnut fundie and the Founder and President of something called The Center for Changing Worldviews – which seems to be a website with a prominent “Store” section – and Host of Changing Worldviews TALK Radio, one of an almost innumerable mass of insane wingnut talk radio channels. Hughes is, for instance, a creationist, as laid out e.g. in her post The Effects of Evolution’s Racist Roots on Students (no url), where she repeats an impressive number of creationist falsehoods and misunderstandings: “Should an effort be made to explain that evolution is just a theory when teaching it in public school?” asks Hughes, before explaining how “Darwin’s theory of evolution on race, […] with blacks at the bottom and whites at the top” (no, she hasn’t tried and doesn’t care) is obviously to blame not only “for the increase of crime and other social problems, such as rape, that we’re seeing amongst our youth today” but for Hitler, Lenin, Mao and Nietzsche. Otherwise, her website seems devoted primarily to various MAGA stuff, fears about “the Marxist takeover of America” and similar seminal topics.

 

Diagnosis: No, we cannot be bothered to delve deeper into the nonsense produced by yet another one of these dingbat fundies. She probably has an audience, but that audience has enough to choose from that she probably doesn’t make much of a difference to anything. Forget it.

 

#3060: Scottie Nell Hughes

Yes, Mike Hughes is dead, but Hughes was also probably one of the most colorful, generally harmless (except to himself) and purified loons the world has ever seen, and we’d feel that an Encyclopedia like ours would be seriously incomplete if we didn’t give him a brief nod.

 

As for Scottie Nell Hughes, we don’t really know what she is up to these days, but at least she used to be a journalist, news anchor and political commentator for the Russian-government propaganda channel RT, where she would promote various pieces of Russian-backed misinformation – such as the died suddenly anti-vaccine conspiracy theory – until at least the American branch of RT folded in 2022. Prior to that she had enjoyed a stint for CNN as their (admittedly mostly dull) resident MAGA clown to defend Trump’s antics for CNN’s 2016 presidential election coverage, and she has been news director of the Tea Party News Network.

 

Hughes is perhaps most famous for her assertion, in relation to the “alternative facts” commotion in 2016 and in response to “people that say facts are facts”, that “there’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts.” Now, you might hear that statement as hyperbolic irony lamenting the current media situation, but that doesn’t seem to be how Hughes intended it: Trump’s lies “among a large part of the population, are truth”, whereas “those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies, and there’s no facts to back it up”. In other words, Hughes was profoundly confused about the rather fundamental distinction between something being a fact and people believing something to be a fact, between belief and reality. And yes, we’ve seen people with academic degrees being confused by that distinction, too (fans of Bruno Latour: we’re looking at you); it’s still a distinction so basic that failure to grasp it makes you an idiot. Her discussion of women in the army doesn’t exactly affect our verdict.

 

Diagnosis: Idiot. Yes, this is old stuff but it is still idiotic enough to pull it up again.

 

#3059: Eric Hufschmid

Eric Hufschmid is a semi-legendary anti-semitic conspiracy theorist who, according to himself, has been “avoiding Zionist traps since 2002” – ‘semi-legendary’ mostly due to his appearance on a Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Episode on conspiracy theories. Precisely what his views are is sometimes a bit difficult to determine, but Jewish people and/or Zionists are certainly at the core of them: as Hufschmid sees it, Jewish people – who may be reptilians – “use their intelligence to kill, sabotage and blackmail their competition [that’s us humans]”.

 

Further details may be superfluous at this point, but Hufschmid also believes that 9/11, the JFK assassination, and the Holocaust were Zionist false flag operations (the gas chambers used by the Nazis never existed and stories of them are a “Zionist invention”; even Michael Jackson’s death was a conspiracy to “divert attention away from Zionism, Israel, and Jews in general”, and at one point, he even suspected that his wife-to-be was a Zionist agent and that it was best to break off the relationship. Moreover, the moon landing is a hoax (the Zionist connection is unclear) and Paul McCartney was killed in 1966 and replaced by an impersonator. And so on. Sometimes he also provides health advice; we couldn’t quite get ourselves to read his post “We do not need toilet paper!”, but feel free to look it up (no link provided).

 

Apparently, he has a book, too: Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack (2002). That one actually seems to have caused some consternation in 9/11 denialist circles, insofar as Hufschmid harshly denounced a number of fellow truthers (Dave von Kleist, Dylan Avery, Jason Bermas, and Korey Rowe) for denying “that there is any Zionist involvement in 9/11. They are Zionist Deniers. In addition, they are Holocaust Promoters.” And “if Europe can arrest people for investigating the Holocaust, we in America should arrest Zionist Deniers.” And Hufschmid’s book does seem to have had some impact: it was for instance Hufschmid who convinced venture capitalist Jimmy Walter to launch his vast advertising campaign to contest the ‘official version’ of the 9/11 attacks.

 

Diagnosis: The internet gave him followers and the attention of venture capitalists. We don’t think that’s what he really needed.

 

Hat-tip: Rationalwiki

 

#3058: Larry Huch

No

Larry Huch is pastor at the New Beginnings Church in Bedford, Texas, a dominionist, and a MAGA cultist. 

So yes, Huch thinks his fundie brand of Christianity should control all aspects of government and culture, and yes, he believes that Trump is the right guy to ensure that such control is achieved. He previously thought that Ted Cruz was the right guy, that Cruz was anointed by God to help Christians in their effort to “go to the marketplace and occupy the land … and take dominion” over it (including ensuring an ‘end-time transfer of wealth’ that would relieve Christians of all financial woes, presumably through tax breaks exclusively for Christians, and allow true believers to assume the positions of political and cultural power from which they can build a Christian civilization). Huch was, after all, a close associate of Rafael Cruz: they used to spew the same brand of theological ideas and Cruz senior has appeared as a featured speaker at Huch’s church. These days, however, it is Trump. As Huch sees it, “President Trump is a gift from God. He is an answer to prayer not only politically, but economically and spiritually.” And given what, according to Huch, is obviously in store, he “can’t believe how impatient Americans are” about, say, the devastating impact of Trump's tariffs.

 

There are, of course, obstacles along the way. In 2025, for instance, Huch felt the need to lead a gathering of Christian nationalists in praying that “the spirit of God” will come upon Trump and Elon Musk – “these two unbelievably brilliant, wonderful men” – and reconcile them. “We bind this devil of division,” prayed Huch because that’s how you achieve reconciliation.

 

Diagnosis: So an unwavering sycophant and fanboi of all things rightwing. And though he comes across primarily as silly, he does have some influence.

 

#3057: Andrew Huberman

Andrew David Huberman is an American neuroscientist and associate professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and he is, without doubt, a real and respected researcher in his field. But Huberman is also an extremely popular and influential podcaster (the ‘Huberman Lab’), and as an influencer he goes way beyond of his areas of expertise to offer, like so many influencers, lifestyle advice (his podcast has, for instance, won a ‘Best Wellness & Fitness Podcast’ award at the iHeartPodcast Awards) based largely on pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, denialism and a rather arrogant trust in the powers of his own intuition; as a result, Huberman the wellness guru – he is an unofficial leader and champion of the biohacking movement – “recommends activities that are more befitting a deranged shaman than a scientist”, though the recommendations are often adorned with pop neuropsychology, and his podcast has been aptly described as a “Goop for bros” wellness space.

 

In particular, Huberman has promoted a range of “poorly regulated” dietary supplements, and his podcast is of course monetized and sponsored by “companies offering questionable products from the perspective of science-based medicine”, including AG1 (formerly Athletic Greens) – indeed, his podcast functions largely as a lucrative infomercial for unnecessary and shitty supplement products. Huberman has for instance contributed massively to the largely idiotic peptide craze currently plaguing America, and yes, his claims are backed mostly by pseudoscience and handwaving dressed in scientific-sounding jargon, with Huberman’s primary gambit being to refer to his own credentials. Perhaps as importantly as using his credentials as a scientist to lend credibility to such products, Huberman uses them to lend legitimacy to his guests, who comprise a colorful array of contrarians, grifters and pseudoscientists, including notorious nutrition misinformer Robert Lustig and hormone balancing quack Sara Gottfried. It’s all shit.

 

Huberman has also explicitly endorsed a number of specific pieces of misinformation and, yes, conspiracy theories. He has, for instance, endorsed the pseudoscientific leaky gut diagnosis, a pseudo-diagnosis championed e.g. by promoters of so-called functional medicine – fake diagnoses are, of course, a central part of alternative medicine: patients themselves are, after all, somewhat disposed to recognize that a quack’s favored piece of quackery doesn’t actually help against any real disease they might suffer from; if the diagnosis is fake too, things might quickly be less clear.

 

He has also thrown his lot in with the sunscreen denialists, stating that he was “... as scared of sunscreen as I am of melanoma” on the grounds that the ingredients include chemicals and citing a study that doesn’t appear to exist (he did, in fairness, backtrack on that one). And although Huberman can’t quite be called ‘antivaccine’, he has stated that he himself doesn’t get the flu vaccine mostly because a tough bro like him ain’t scared of no flu. His claims about colds and the flu are, predictably, rife with misinformation, as documented here, here, here, here and here: Huberman “misrepresents basic immunology, undermines proven public health measures, and exaggerates unproven wellness trends”, and yes, his take on the flu is dumb enough to include nonsense hacks for boosting your immune system (he also dismissed criticism on the grounds that he had “consulted” with some MDs when preparing the relevant episodes).

 

In line with his attraction to the pseudoscientific and conspiratorial, Huberman has expressed skepticism toward water fluoridation, and has on at least one occasion stated that he believes his Bluetooth headphones are harmful, thus feeding into the Wi-Fi/microwave conspiracy theories of his buddy RFK Jr., by claiming that he is getting “swollen lymph nodes and cysts” behind his ears due, apparently, to harmful “heat effects”. Here are some data. We are confident that Huberman’s fans won’t be bothered with them.

 

Diagnosis: The biohacking bro du jour, Huberman has, perhaps unwittingly, become one of the main poster boys for MAHA and belongs in the group of people like Dr. Oz and Deepak Chopra who use their credentials to spread pseudoscience – and no, it’s not all bad, and Huberman is probably not remotely as bad as those other two loons just mentioned; on the other hand, his reach is even wider: Indeed, Huberman’s reach is wide enough that he could probably have been doing a real service to the world if he had just bothered to cut the garbage (which, unfortunately, is where the money is).

 

#3056: Don Huber

 

Don M. Huber is a former Purdue University professor and current anti-GMO activist who (at least until relatively recently) were doing extensive publicity tours sponsored by various organic, alternative health and anti-GMO interest groups to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about genetically modified organisms. Huber is particularly focused on how glyphosate and herbicide tolerant GM crops are allegedly causing health problems in people and animals, and is most famous for his claims to have discovered, years ago, a novel pathogenic microbe that has been caused by agricultural genetic engineering and which is currently wreaking havoc on humans and animals. There is, of course, no shred of evidence to back up that claim – Huber himself has no peer reviewed publications on it and he has consistently refused to make his ‘data’ available for any other scientist to assess.

 

But Huber has long claimed that glyphosate and GMO herbicide tolerant crops are linked to human and animal health risks. According to Huber and not the data, animals fed GM crops are dying in record numbers, and there is a correlation between GM soy/corn and inflammatory bowel disease in humans (he tends to point out that correlation doesn’t imply causation, before launching into wild inferences about causation from correlations that don’t exist outside his own mind). He also claims that glyphosate is linked to alzheimer’s disease, gout, diabetes, Parkinson’s, allergies and fertility issues. He cites no scientific evidence for these claims, but does cite rants and claims by Gilles-Eric Séralini and infamous Maharishi-movement yogic flying instructor Jeffrey M. Smith.

 

Huber has collaborated with familiar anti-GMO activist researchers like Judy Carman and Jack Heinemann, and appears in a prominent role in the Gary Null-produced conspiracy flick Seeds of Death.

 

Diagnosis: Another one-time scientist who has gone full pseudoscientific crackpot (and scaremonger) in his olden days. Some grow wisdom; others, we suppose, lose any concern they might have had for evidence, accuracy or accountability. He’s pretty old, but we’re sure there are plenty of others ready to fill his shoes.

 

Hat-tip: Geneticliteracyproject