I've listened to quite a few podcasts with him already, I might check this one out too.
One thing to point out: " The light environment is the most important" <- this is not first principles. It is an opinion. And it for sure does not hold universally - many people have good light environment, but their diet / microbiome / ... is shit.
It is an opinion that he has probably good theory about, but you can't say these things about complex systems (and we are complex systems) and still pretend you are first-principles based (in complex systems, there's computational irreducibility, so you simply can't say statements like these in any logically defensible way).
I am not saying his arguments are not valid, but he does not understand limits of what can be said. He does not show we don't have adaptations - example: to say that light is most important, because we have developed in a particular way and have biology to work with the light does not mean there are not other mechanisms that we use when required in a different environment. Like we have primary and secondary (and tertiary) metabolic pathways for vitamins - it's simply so important that you can't rely on the environment to be the certain way.
I still believe it is safest to go to paleo environments. But for example forests were common - yes, savannas and open woodlands were more common, but there were significant populations, especially in middle and late paleolithic that were based in forests (especially in Europe and in the rainforests). It's very unlikely we wouldn't have adaptation for that environment. Nature does not make mistakes 😉
It is quite common that a guru comes, says something is more important, people super-optimize one factor, a decade passes and they realize, it was not it. Microbiome, sleep, carnivore/paleo diet, light, "fat is bad", ...
For me, it is more low-level heuristic. He just sounds very angry, always exposing conspiracies, always criticizing others in very unconstructive way, etc. I wouldn't like to be like that, so I need either a different role-model or a messenger. It's not a mindset I want to adapt. So if his first principle theories lead to that, I'd rather look elsewhere, I don't want to be constantly angry about the world. I think chronic stress reduction is more important than light 😉 Much more important. It's also environment based.
