Old Biology Meets New Technology – Raphael Sirtoli – #CoSci

Raphael Sirtoli's presentation delves into the intersection of ancestral health principles and self-experimentation, focusing on a new health-tracking app called Ancestral. The app aims to improve users' health by estimating disease probabilities using a Bayesian network and suggesting interventions based on low-carb, ketogenic, and carnivore diets, among other lifestyle changes. Sirtoli highlights the importance of evolutionary biology in understanding health, advocating for self-experimentation and skepticism of mainstream medical advice. He emphasizes the distinction between common and normal health conditions and criticizes the conventional medical approach for ignoring evolutionary biology and promoting surface-level symptom treatment.

Chapter List
0:00 - Introduction and Background
0:27 - Opening Remarks
0:50 - Ancestral Health Principles
1:21 - Overview of Ancestral App
2:01 - Statistical Bayesian Network
2:24 - Roadmap of the Talk
3:00 - Causal Connections and Disease Modeling
4:18 - Estimating Disease Risk
4:52 - Menu of Interventions
5:52 - Importance of Tracking Progress
6:48 - Education and Explanation of Interventions
7:00 - Philosophical Overlap with Citizen Science Foundation
8:01 - Hashtag #DoYourOwnResearch
9:00 - Common vs. Normal Health Conditions
9:50 - Evolutionary Biology and Self-Experimentation
10:47 - Differences of Ancestral from Mainstream Medicine
12:00 - Simplified Model of Insulin Resistance
12:50 - Evolutionary Biology in Medicine
13:50 - Root Cause Analysis vs. Symptom Analysis
14:48 - Conclusion and Favorite Quote

[TheMoQingbird]

@13:30 sums up every visit to a medical professional I have ever had.

[bryanspencer]

So even though we’ve literally NEVER observed evolution, we’re going to base science on evolution. Foolish.