Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cogniti...
Episode 306: What to Expect When You're Expecting (David Lynch's "Eraserhead" with Barry Lam)
David and Tamler welcome Barry Lam back to the show. In the first segment we violate one of our own rules by talking about his new book "Fewer Rules, Better People", a full frontal attack on David’s strict Kantian worldview. Then we dive DEEP into David Lynch’s first movie, "Eraserhead," and eventually arrive at a few coherent interpretations of Lynch’s “most spiritual film." Barry Lam [ucr.edu] Fewer Rules, Better People: The Case for Discretion by Barry Lam [amazon.com affiliate link] Eraserhead [wikipedia.org] David Lynch BAFTA interview (Origin of "Eraserhead is my most spiritual film" quote) [youtube.com]
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2:04:08
Episode 305: Emile Is the Name of the Goat (with Paul Bloom)
VBW favorite Paul Bloom joins us to break down the Severance season finale and season 2 in general. We all agree that it’s a much-needed return to form and debate some of the choices and questions the episode raises. Plus, an evolutionary account of the ‘ick’ and the adaptive trait of graceful ping-pong ball chasing. Collisson, B., Saunders, E., & Yin, C. (2025). The ick: Disgust sensitivity, narcissism, and perfectionism in mate choice thresholds. Personality and Individual Differences, 238, 113086. Very Bad Wizards Episode 236: Your Outie is Skilled at Lovemaking (with Paul Bloom) Paul's Substack Newsletter "Small Potatoes"
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1:44:26
Episode 304: The Planes Don't Land
What has four thumbs and can effortlessly glide from the a priori to the a posteriori in a single episode? These guys. In the first segment we tackle a brand new paper called “Being Exalted: an A Priori Argument for the Trinity.” That’s right, the Holy Trinity arrived at through reason alone. Then in the main segment we talk about Richard Feynman’s classic 1974 Caltech commencement address “Cargo Cult Science.” Does Feynman’s metaphor suggest that whole paradigms might be systematically misguided? Or is he just admonishing social scientists to maintain their integrity and use more rigorous methods? As you might imagine, a fight almost breaks out in this one. Moore, H. J. (2025). Being Exalted: An A Priori Argument for the Trinity. Sophia, 1-23. [link.springer.com] Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feynman [caltech.edu] Interrogating the “cargo cult science” metaphor by Andrew Gelman and Megan Higgs [columbia.edu]
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1:40:28
Episode 303: Measure This
Everyone knows Tamler hates numbers but he’s not the only one who worries about them. We talk about the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen’s excellent paper “Value Capture” which examines how the ever-increasing presence of metrics, data, indicators, rankings, and other forms quantification shape our values as individuals and institutions. Plus, VBW Does Conceptual Analysis – we’re on to the ‘S’ words now: smug. Nguyen, C. T. (2024). Value capture. J. Ethics & Soc. Phil., 27, 469.
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1:26:20
Episode 302: Metaphysical Edging
What makes something weird? What makes something eerie? David and Tamler wander into Mark Fisher’s The Weird and the Eerie to learn more about these concepts. How does weird art expand our imagination of what’s possible? Why does the feeling of eeriness dissolve when we get an explanation for what we see? What draws us to phenomena that evoke these unsettling feelings? Plus – DeepSeek has Silicon Valley shitting themselves but how does it really stack up against good old American AI? The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher [amazon.com affiliate link]
Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cognitive science, and who have a marked inability to distinguish sacred from profane. Each podcast includes discussions of moral philosophy, recent work on moral psychology and neuroscience, and the overlap between the two.
New Zealand