Very Bad Wizards
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.
Episode 341: Psychology Ranked (With Paul Bloom)
David and Tamler welcome Paul Bloom back to the show for a definitive ranking of classic psychology experiments. Will the shocking results of the Milgram studies earn him a posthumous 'S' ranking? How far will Zimbardo fall? Is the Stroop effect a super e...
The Lotus Eaters Episode 8: Home and Homelessness [unlocked]
In this episode, Tamler and David discuss The Odyssey Books 15 & 16, in which father and son (and father figure and son) are reunited, and in which the Odysseus and Telemachus start planning their revenge against the suitors.
The Lotus Eaters Episode 7: Lying Odysseus [unlocked]
Tamler and David discuss Books 13 & 14 of The Odyssey. Odysseus finally makes it to Ithaca and meets up with Athena, gets a disguise, and has a chat with his most loyal slave Eumaeus.
Episode 340: The Sublime Folly of Hope
Why do baseball players have so many superstitious rituals compared to athletes in other sports? How does this relate to the magic rituals of the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia? We dive into Bronisław Malinowski's classic 1925 paper "Magic, Science, and...
The Lotus Eaters Episode 6: Psyches [unlocked]
David and Tamler discuss The Odyssey's iconic books 11 & 12, in which our hero visits the ghosts of the dead, hears the call of the sirens, and survives a no-win situation.
Listener Reviews
Read what other people are saying about our podcast!
1 critique
Excellent topics, but I can’t get past the nearly constant giggling / laughing.
Very Bad Listener
I started listening to Very Bad Wizards in 2026, but went back to their first episode from 2012 and began listening from there. I’d never taken this approach to a new pod, but thinking I’d get a much better picture of the topics discussed if I start from the beginning. Maybe I was hoping these guys would systematically...
Read MoreNot one of those fake 5 star reviews
If only Tamler would stop eating meat. Five star reviews are fake anyway. Still repugnant after all these years.