Who's Alan Flanagan and why should I listen to his opinion on Huberman?
From what I can tell, Huberman is a neuroscience Ph.D. whereas Flanagan is one in nutritional science is that right? If so, by credentials alone, Huberman seems like a better reference in matters of the nervous system.
Note that I have no horse in this race, I'm really just curious!
Alan has an MSc and PhD in nutrition and runs Alinea nutrition.
I can't speak on Huberman's assessment of research in the neuroscience space, where he has expertise. Alan has done some breakdowns of Huberman's broad claims related to nutrition, and how they're generally hyperbolic and lacking sufficient evidence (ie they're not based on studies that show outcomes in actual humans in a controlled fashion).
The folks at Barbell Medicine have spoken to some of his generic health/fitness claims as well, to similar effect.
I think Huberman uses his platform and title to paint overly broad strokes about all kinds of things outside of his expertise. Some of this could be attributed to a platform like twitter that prioritizes small amounts of text, but overall I think it's disingenuous especially as someone claiming to be an expert. I think if he were more interested in helping people he would focus less on money/fame/views and take a more nuanced approach, instead of (mis)leading people to change based on extremely limited evidence. The problem is he wouldn't be able to churn out so much content if he did so.
I have no reason to doubt any of his academic qualifications. But I have a lot of appreciation for the breadth and depth of knowledge required to speak confidently about the latest evidence in a field. This becomes a problem when the field is outside of one's expertise. Alan goes into this in detail on his instagram post.
I realize the post is based on something Huberman said within his expertise. But I think the context is important to understand, as it makes me wary of listening to him in general.
From what I can tell, Huberman is a neuroscience Ph.D. whereas Flanagan is one in nutritional science is that right? If so, by credentials alone, Huberman seems like a better reference in matters of the nervous system.
Note that I have no horse in this race, I'm really just curious!