Les Stroud isn't perfect, and that's just one of the many reasons I love the show "Survivorman"

My thoughts are that I'm glad Les Stroud shows his screw-ups as well as the things that go right. In a survival situation it is very likely that I'm going to screw something up, and more than one thing at that. When Les does something wrong and then recovers it shows that you can go on if something fails.

Here are a few of Les's more memorable screw-ups, off the top of my head:
Caught his shelter on fire
Got sick eating water lily roots
Cut himself trying to get water from a vine
Built the worst igloo ever, in the wrong season
Played a harmonica when polar bears were about
Built a shelter too close to a river, when it had been raining
Built a trap in a way that he almost crushed fingers in the attempt to set it
Failed to properly bait a trap, the bait was stolen and he caught nothing

I could go on and on listing various screw-ups. In any case, as far as I can remember Les has never given out advice that I would consider contrary to what one should do in a survival situation where he didn't mention the "proper", or perhaps I should say "commonly accepted", way to do things.

Regarding the cotton socks, Les was in a Georgia Swamp and probably could have gone without socks if he needed to, at least long enough to fire dry them. And even though the temperature dropped significantly several nights while he was out there, he survived the ordeal, so cotton socks probably worked well for him in those surroundings. We often hear the maxim "Cotton Kills" here on the forum. When you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, then yes cotton can fail to keep your body heat close to you, but cotton isn't the Boogieman if a person is careful and knows how to get around the materials negative aspects.

If he did say that a person should always wear cotton socks, then I'd agree that he shouldn't have, or at least that I wouldn't follow that particular bit of advice. I'll try and catch that episode when it's on again and listen closely.

As always, I could be wrong.