What Joe Rogan, and others with similar stories, did not do is perform the other half of the "experiment" by either doing nothing or something different during the course of his illness. Since he did a variety of things and recovered it appears to some that what he did CAUSED his recovery. However it is entirely possible that simple symptomatic home care like resting, fluids and tylenol would have produced the same result. Additionally, it is quite possible that given his age and health status his risk of serious illness was low. Finally, he may have just gotten lucky and gotten a mild illness which is common.