The Fungal Evangelist Who Would Save the Bees | Hacker News Reader

The Fungal Evangelist Who Would Save the Bees

nautil.us

60 pointsdnetesn20 comments

Learning about Stamets and reading his books opened up a whole new appreciation of nature for me. Starting with learning how to identify wild edible mushrooms, you then have to learn about different types of trees, seasonal patterns, weather, etc. It’s a great hobby that helps you learn about the interconnectedness of everything in nature while benefitting from delicious and healthy treats along the way. One of the most fun memories of this last year was stumbling across a patch of morels in the spring (one of the rarest and most delicious mushrooms that can only be found in the wild for a few weeks in early spring). I’ve even started making some of the extracts described in this article at home (tinctures of reishi, chaga, and lion’s mane) and enjoy sharing them with friends and family.

If you don't have it already his book "Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms" is an indispensable guide for growing many species of mushrooms, including morels, at any scale. Coincidentally, it contains his observation of bees sucking on King Stropharia mycelium before the insight they might be doing it to self medicate.

Stamets is a fascinating & passionate guy, but it's worth remembering that he makes a lot of claims that aren't necessarily backed up by research (Stamets himself has only a bachelor's degree).

https://www.jncas.org/doi/full/10.7572/2167-5880-130.1.16

And some of his claims are just plain pseudoscience, i.e. his claims on the Joe Rogan Show about "entering the multiverse" via psilocybin, the Stoned Ape theory, etc.

https://psychedelictimes.com/paul-stamets-psilocybin-stories...

I feel like I have to take this reminder to reddit on a regular basis. The job of an evangelist isn't necessarily to get it right, but to get people excited. Stamets does that, but I wouldn't rely on him as a source for any scientific research or information.

I can't speak for Stamets, but I wouldn't disqualify someone as an authority in a field due to lack of degree. For example, Agner Fog is an anthropologist who is also a frequently cited authority on x86 instruction timing and optimization.

I think the gp is disqualifying Stamets as an authority because he makes claims that are poorly supported by evidence. I agree with this assessment. He also happens to have no formal qualifications. So from where does he derive his authority? And if he has no authority, why is an article that is based on his authority interesting? I agree with gp that he's interesting, but he's also a salesman for fungi --- literally.

For example, he sells lions mane extracts which promise to improve memory and cognitive function. All of the science in this area is based on mouse studies. Stamets asserts this "translates from mice to humans," and leaves it at that. He makes statements such as "a Japanese researcher postulated" or "there are several clinical trials out there" (without commenting on their design or even conclusions). So while nothing he says is a lie, everything he says is meant to point to a certain conclusion despite a dramatic lack of direct evidence. If lions mane really helped that much, you'd think it would be easy to determine that, because given it's safety profile it should be easy to run a study on humans.

On the other hand, well powered human studies are expensive, but supplements are very cheap.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=hericium+erinaceus+NOT...

He does say they don’t go from mice to humans automatically.

See also Jane Goodall who was awarded her degree only after her groundbreaking discoveries about non-human primate behavior.

Many of his claims for medicinal and environmental use of fungi are backed by independent research. Talking about some "out there" ideas doesnt disqualify everything somebody says.

Remember Stamets owns a company that sells a lot of these fungal medicinal products, so I would question his impartiality when making any scientific claims.

I'd agree about that when it comes to most of the 'supplement' side of his fungi business. I'm a bit less skeptical when it comes to this particular application regarding bees: it seems like a pretty easy thing to test and is likely more regulated than the supplements business.

I guess at the end of the day I want to believe there's a solid solution for colony collapse, otherwise we might be screwed.

His relationship with the company is more damning than that: his commercial supplements are well known for containing very little of the active ingredients he is associated with. It's a cash grab.

None of the bees on his website are honey bees interestingly enough. If he can develop a additive to feed the bees before winter that specifically targets varroa, I'd be interested in trying it out. There are plenty of treatment options out there, and some are even natural. His bee feeder is clearly not designed by someone who keeps bees though. Open feeding like that can cause the spread of varroa.

It’d be worth trying to communicate a better design to him.

For those interested in learning more about Stamets and his fungal endeavors, I recommend listening/watching the JRE episode with him (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ6Ym719urg) as well as the Tim Ferris Show episode (https://tim.blog/2018/10/11/paul-stamets/). Fascinating individual.

The name rung a bell, and I realized Michael Pollan also visited Stamets for his recent book 'How to Change Your Mind'. Pollan also recites the same anecdote of Stamets's climbing a tree while tripping on psilocybin and getting caught in a lightning storm. I suppose the man, even if questionably credentialed, has sufficient cachet among the mycological community to make him an almost required stop on any survey of the subject.

This man has been studying/researching Fungi his entire life. Very interesting, well spoken, human.

That's a fascinating story, and I hope it bears fruit. It does seem quite sensationalist, though, so we'll have to see.

Fungi can also be very, very bad. I remember some nightmare diseases, when I lived in Africa.

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