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snowman I’ve meant to ask you about him for a while and reading this reminded me to pick your brain on it. as someone in a similar field, what’re your general thoughts on him? curious about perspective about him personally and also the work/information he produces
I probably first saw him in 2021 or 2022 and thought he was kind of interesting but also had this pretty intense feeling of ick and uncertainty, as I typically feel when people promote these mechanisms of self-growth that seem to either directly or indirectly align with a desired progression towards being an “alpha male” or whatever else you wanna call it. I haven’t watched anything from him in a long time and really haven’t even seen or heard much about him both online and in person lately so idk where he’s headed or what his status looks like at this point
I'll keep this kind of short because honestly I don't really know all that much about him other than what i've seen in passing on social media. his scientific work mostly revolves around opthamology and the visual system, more specifically retinal/optic nerve development and regeneration. This isn't really an area i've been specifically immersed in ( i worked in a visuomotor lab, but that was more about visual processing in higher order areas for motor planning - premotor and parietal cortices and neuronal population dynamics).
from what i've seen 'in the wild' from him (mostly people posting shiz attributed to him on instagram or something) and he always seemed sorta like one of those people is truly an expert in something, but talks about stuff outside his wheelhouse. most of the posts etc. i've seen are about like, longevity, dealing with trauma, or working out. i always got the life coach/fitness/wellness influencer vibe, so I just tuned him out as someone touting his credentials for personal gain. again, just an impression - i haven't listened to any of his podcasts. I skimmed one of his papers at work earlier and it was a solid review paper in a respected journal.
I think a big problem in pop science is adequately putting into context the results of studies, and how to properly interpret things like sample sizes, effect sizes, replication, etc. If you're trying to have a hit podcast (or press release, or CNN new spot, etc.) then you need topics that have some meaning to lay people, and possibly have some spectacle or every day relevance to them. Not saying it can't be done, but if you're putting out a podcast every week on an interesting topic, it's possible that you can miss out on some the nuances or overplay the results for a more 'impactful' result, and then you end up with an audience who thing a problem or topic is 'solved' - when really science is constantly evolving, progress is incremental, and it takes a long time to build scientific consensus and robust understanding.
