On Quacks, Bullshit, Bunkum and Cardiologists

What's the best term for money-grubbing opportunistic internet scammers?

Lately, I’ve been pondering writing a post entitled “Who Are the Greatest Purveyors (or Spewers) of Online Pseudoscientific* Bullshit?”

I have a fondness for the term BS to describe certain prominent supplement and woo pushers that bombard the gullible with promises of youth and vigor the secrets of which reside only in their concoctions.

But I have resisted heretofore using the term bullshit in my articles for fear of offending those with delicate sensibilities. The other night, however, when a friend at a dinner party indicated she was afraid to eat peanuts the word came rushing out of my mouth and it felt quite satisfying.

To those who feel bullshit should not be used in polite company I would like to point out that the word has appeared in the titles of multiple papers in the sociologic literature.

The recently deceased prominent American moral philosopher Harry Frankfurt, wrote an entire book “On Bullshit”, You can read the initial essay upon which his book was based here.

He begins thusly:

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us.

Frankfurt goes on to differentiate bulshitting from lying: lying is a conscious act of deception, whereas the bulshitter is not concerned with the truth

The bullshitter “does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

Hmmm. That sounds familiar.

The younger version of the skeptical cardiologist spent many hours writing articles attempting to debunk the most prominent quacks that ruffled his feathers. Which reminds me that I started writing an article entitled “Dr. Gundry's Longevity Paradox Is Pure Bunk: Does That Make Him A Quack?” Bunk or bunkum (which apparently was invented after a politician from Buncombe county, North Carolina gave a long-winded pointless speech) is definitely less jarring than BS but lacks its intensity.

Other synonyms for BS or bunk including baloney, rubbish, crap, hooey, garbage, foolishness, and hogwash seem too mild or quaint and definitely lack intensity.

A long time ago in the pre-COVID era, I felt comfortable describing the purveyors of BS as quacks. I wrote an article on the #1 red flag of quackery which prompted the lawyers of Dr. Charles Gundry to send me a cease and desist letter.

I wrote about one of the many such letters I have gotten from Gundry’s army of lawyers in “What is a Cardiologist?”

The lawyer’s main arguments against my article being defamatory of Dr. Gundry were that

“a “quack” is defined in common parlance as a lay person pretending to be a licensed physician. In other words, a fake doctor. The term “quack” connotes dishonesty, deception, fraudulent behavior, etc. Dr. Gundry has been a licensed physician and surgeon since at least 1989.

The lawyer also objected to me saying that Gundry wasn’t a cardiologist. In point of fact, Gundry is not a cardiologist, he was a cardiothoracic surgeon and I describe in detail how these two differ.

I ended up taking down any direct statements from that post classifying Gundry as a quack and I’ve stayed away from the term since then. I’ve also lost my taste for debunking quacks. It is pretty pointless and reminiscent of whack-a-mole.

However, that business of legal action spurred me to write “Why You Should Avoid The Plant Paradox by Stephen Gundry” in 2018, which is by far the most popular post I’ve ever written.

My friend’s mention of Dr. Gundry’s lectin paranoia plus a patient asking me about Dr. Ford Brewer’s videos has motivated me to compile a list of the biggest quacks or bullshitters on the internet.

Please give me your input on what term I should use for the blather that spews from hucksters like Grundy and Brewer.

Also, feel free to nominate candidates for my list.

In the meantime, I suggest you read this excellent article on Dr. Gundry’s Vital Reds the pills that inspired me to write my article on the red flags of quackery.

The article is one of many helpful articles from the McGill University Office of Science and Society , department of Separating Sense from Nonsense.

Profanely Yours,

-ACP

*An American Scientist editorial recommends against scientists using the term pseudoscience because “The term lacks a coherent meaning and leads to unnecessary polarization, mistrust, disrespectfulness, and confusion around science issues”