About Our Podcast

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.


All Episodes

Recent Episodes

Very Bad WizardsJune 30, 2026
365
01:30:13103.46 MB

Episode 336: The Wright Stuff

The great Robert Wright returns to the podcast to talk about his new book T he God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning. We debate the magnitude of AI's potential impact, the natural selection analogy Bob presses in the book, and ...

Very Bad WizardsJune 16, 2026
334
01:20:1692.07 MB

Episode 334: Let's Get Metaphysical

What are the legitimate ways to inquire about the nature of the universe? We have science, metaphysics, phenomenological inquiry, but what about mystical and meditative practices? David and Tamler talk about a paper that argues for allowing mystical insig...

Very Bad WizardsMay 26, 2026
333
54:2762.53 MB

Episode 333: P-hacking the Mind

David and Tamler do another tier ranking--this time on philosophical thought experiments, so as not to further alienate our chemistry-adjacent listeners. We hit most of the big ones: Pascal's wager, Pascal's mugging, Mary the color scientist, the Ring of ...

Reviews

What the people say about us

Apple Podcasts
Not 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.

Apple Podcasts
Lovely Show

so relaxing to listen to these guys cut it up. subjects are real thinky, which i like, give my brain some oats while my body is binging carrots. ive prob listened to 100 episodes and could't tell you about a single one, but im right there with it in the moment, im nodding my head about Spinoza something or other. Give ...

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Apple Podcasts
Cool guys

Just a couple of cool guys talking about lots of cool things. I like listening to their conversation even when I have no idea what they are talking about. Tamler was one of my professors in college and he was cool. Never met David but he is cool too. Both of them very cool; really cool podcast.

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