I don't care about Gerard's contributions. Nor do I either know or care about the facts of the ECA stack. I read his post the first time it was mentioned on LW, and I've read it again - it still seems like a damning example of Ferriss's shoddy research practices. I'll quote it:

So I sought out his references PDF (he doesn't put them in the actual book for space reasons) and looked up what he had ... no dozens of studies, just a long quote from an old version of the Wikipedia article. Except that that text was removed from the article because it was completely uncited, overall or in detail, and was peppered with "citation needed" tags. It's only one example, but I think quoting text that was deleted from Wikipedia for having been uncited rubbish as your crowning moment of evidence suggests deep problems with the concept of evidence.)

You do not point to an unreferenced - not just an unreferenced part, but one with active warning tags indicating low quality! - as your citation for a claim like 'dozens of studies supported the effects'. You point to a study, or a review, or hell, a popular media article like from the New York Times or something claiming to summarize the research.

making a claim about the state of scientific theory that flat out contradicts what can be found with a single pubmed search

A Pubmed search he did not link to (he could link to Wikipedia but not Pubmed?), and which I have no reason to believe he ever conducted. In 4HW, Ferriss advocates multiple forms of lying and deception, and more generally, laziness; he deserves no benefit of the doubt. If it looks like he stopped at a Wikipedia paragraph - he probably did just that, in full accordance with his little 'Pareto' principles.

(The contrast with lukeprog is obvious.)