I gave Mr. (not Dr.) Caulfield the benefit of the doubt and watched all the episodes before writing this review.
Creating a documentary about how pop-science, the media, and our own biases shape our perception of health is a great idea. It is necessary to separate fact from fiction and to encourage a scientific approach to health and wellness.
However, this documentary doesn't do any of this. Instead, it presents opinion as fact, has a very narrow and subjective perspective, and is lazy about researching the different topics that it presents.
In Episode 1, extreme examples of detox are presented, the history of detox is not presented, detox and diet are occasionally presented as being the same thing, and a few scientific arguments are presented. Only the ionic foot bath is shown to be a hoax.
In Episode 2, judgements are made about cosmetic surgery; however, risks, benefits, and other considerations are not well explored. There is nothing data-driven or scientific about the arguments being made.
In Episode 3, genetic testing is attacked because it hasn't lived up to the initial hype; however, genetic testing has had many positive outcomes and could still be revolutionary in the future. Because genetic testing has not completely revolutionized health care doesn't mean that it is a myth or that it should be debunked.
Episode 4 presents a case study about the biggest loser and not much else. It doesn't get into most of the interesting research about diet and its relationship to apoptosis or specific diets that have been prescribed to help with epilepsy. Cherry picking crazy fad diets and then ridiculing them does more damage than good and is a strawman argument against diets in general.
I could go on... Ultimately, this show is pop-science trash that hypocritically cherry-picks random aspects of health and wellness to "debunk" them. Health and wellness is complex and they should be evaluated scientifically; however, this show doesn't begin to do that good work. Instead it uses pop-science and opinion to attack convenient pop-science (AND REAL SCIENCE) trends in health.
Creating a documentary about how pop-science, the media, and our own biases shape our perception of health is a great idea. It is necessary to separate fact from fiction and to encourage a scientific approach to health and wellness.
However, this documentary doesn't do any of this. Instead, it presents opinion as fact, has a very narrow and subjective perspective, and is lazy about researching the different topics that it presents.
In Episode 1, extreme examples of detox are presented, the history of detox is not presented, detox and diet are occasionally presented as being the same thing, and a few scientific arguments are presented. Only the ionic foot bath is shown to be a hoax.
In Episode 2, judgements are made about cosmetic surgery; however, risks, benefits, and other considerations are not well explored. There is nothing data-driven or scientific about the arguments being made.
In Episode 3, genetic testing is attacked because it hasn't lived up to the initial hype; however, genetic testing has had many positive outcomes and could still be revolutionary in the future. Because genetic testing has not completely revolutionized health care doesn't mean that it is a myth or that it should be debunked.
Episode 4 presents a case study about the biggest loser and not much else. It doesn't get into most of the interesting research about diet and its relationship to apoptosis or specific diets that have been prescribed to help with epilepsy. Cherry picking crazy fad diets and then ridiculing them does more damage than good and is a strawman argument against diets in general.
I could go on... Ultimately, this show is pop-science trash that hypocritically cherry-picks random aspects of health and wellness to "debunk" them. Health and wellness is complex and they should be evaluated scientifically; however, this show doesn't begin to do that good work. Instead it uses pop-science and opinion to attack convenient pop-science (AND REAL SCIENCE) trends in health.