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Goop: the wellness choice for the anti-science and anti-intellectual hordes

Ben Rothke
7 min readFeb 4, 2020
Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

Devo is a band from the 1980s who got their name from the concept of de-evolution. The notion that instead of continuing to evolve, humanity has actually begun to regress. As I am not an evolutionary biologist, the details of the concept are beyond me.

But looking around, seeing the growth in anti-science ideas such as the belief in a flat earth, that vaccines cause autism, and the growth of pseudoscience products such as Goop makes the notion of de-evolution somewhat compelling,

Dr. Rohin Francis is a UK-based cardiologist, a man well trained in medicine and the sciences. His YouTube channel showcases offbeat science and makes for entertaining and fascinating viewing. His most recent video, Don’t Blame Gwyneth For Goop’s Success, is worth watching, and he makes it eminently clear that Goop deserves all the criticism that’s been flying their way. However, he astutely observed that to only concentrate on Goop is to miss the reason snake oil wellness peddlers like Goop and other charlatans are doing so well.

He makes several astute points, which I would like to highlight and expand on here. His question is this: why is Goop (and similar charlatans) so successful?

Goop and others in the wellness industry have a significant home-court advantage…

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Ben Rothke
Ben Rothke

Written by Ben Rothke

I work in information security at Tapad. Write book reviews for the RSA blog, & a Founding member of the Cloud Security Alliance and Cybersecurity Canon.

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