Let's go earthing

Wait a minute: Don’t tell me you don’t know about earthing. You must live in a cave on the moon. I guess I’ll deign to explain the concept.

Earthing, you ignorant slut, is the practice of walking barefoot on the ground, which will raise your spirits or grant you wellness or whatever. It comes to us courtesy of Academy Award winner and noted Google-educated scientist Gwyneth Paltrow. On her Goop website, she explains a former cable TV technician recognized the practice of walking without shoes, giving a catchy name (and monetization potential) to something humans have done for uncounted ages. As an article explains about earthing:

“What he seemed to draw from his experience in cable systems was that, not unlike live wires, humans’ electrical charges could be neutralized through contact with the earth. Doing so, he explained, “prevents inflammation-related health disorders: ‘It’s intuitive that—like in a cable system—grounding would neutralize any charge in the body. After grounding myself, and a few friends who had arthritic-type health disorders, I became convinced that grounding could reduce chronic pain.’”

Would you like to join the healthy set in earthing? Then Paltrow has a deal for you. Goop links to these bedsheets and mats you can buy. You plug them in and get the same “grounding” effect you would get by walking on the ground for free. The sheets and mats, in contrast, cost $200. (Maybe they're decorative.)

If you pay $200 for some sheets to walk on, man, they saw you coming.

This is just … so dumb. You know why you might feel better if you walk on the ground barefoot? Because you’re probably doing something pleasurable anyway, like walking in a park on a beautiful sunny day, or playing with your kids in the yard. Of course you’re going to feel better in that situation than walking around in dress shoes from one meeting to another in your fluorescent-lit office.

Oh, but people who read Goop swear by those $200 sheets! They say they'll relieve everything from arthritis to depression! There’s no way that could be misleading, because I assume when they say “swear by,” it means people are testifying under oath and not just offering anonymous internet testimonial. Who would exaggerate to sell a product?

I don’t understand the interest in Goop and all these weird products. Paltrow is always telling people to shove special jewels in their groins or walk on expensive sheets. It’s not some revolutionary science. It’s just people making a ton of money off other people who can’t tell shit from Shinola.

I also don't understand people who search a few scientific papers on PubMed and all of the sudden think they have the knowledge to challenge the rigorous conclusions of multiple trained scientists. I’ve been editing a podiatry magazine for 16 years. I write multiple times a month on research in the field, edit a large volume of clinical research written by others, have attended countless hours of scientific lectures, and have socialized with the top people in the field. If I can do all that and still not claim to be an expert in comparison to the actual podiatrists, how can people claim to be experts in other scientific fields after spending a few hours of free time at Google University?