That, and briefly glancing at the outbound URL before clicking the link. In this case, my logical progression was: 1) "Hmm, that title looks interesting." 2) "Oh, it's by Tim Ferriss." 3) "Skepticism shields up!"
I have nothing against Tim Ferriss in general. I think he's an interesting character, and in a weird way, he's to be commended for his exceptional skill at self promotion. He's sort of our generation's equivalent of P.T. Barnum. And occasionally he'll even make a really insightful point. But I take at least 70% of what he says with a grain of salt.
I'm not in a position to do step 2 on this subject, as I'm not sufficiently into nutrition or medicine or judge the claims in the article independently, and for a non peer-reviewed source addressing what looks like a food fad, there's a good chance that it won't be worth my time to repair that deficiency.
I believe the parent's point wasn't the accuracy of the information you'd be receiving, but just the exercise of evaluating conflicting viewpoints and coming out more enlightened as a result of it. Believe it or not, being able to apply that anywhere (as opposed to just thinking you can) is a skill, and skills need practice. It's an important part of thinking critically, and it can easily be lacking in a lot of very smart people.
EDIT: It wasn't my intention to offend if that was the reason behind the downvotes. It wasn't about anybody specifically, I was just trying to elaborate on a slippery slope issue that seems to be common among smart people.
