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 WizardsOctober 08, 202601:06:2376.44 MB

The Lotus Eaters Episode 11: Cleaning House

Tamler and David discuss books 20, 21, & 22 of The Odyssey. Beginning with omens and portents and ending with merciless slaughter (with a bow contest in between), we finally see Odysseus' plans for revenge reach fruition.

Very Bad WizardsOctober 06, 2026
342
01:53:55130.58 MB

Episode 342: A Boy's Best Friend (Hitchcock's "Psycho")

David and Tamler steal some of Laurie Santos' podcast money (she'll never miss it), drive to LA, and pull over in the rain to spend the night in the Bates Motel. That lanky young man in the office seems nice if a bit awkward, not sure about his mother tho...

Very Bad WizardsOctober 01, 202601:03:0672.67 MB

The Lotus Eaters Episode 10: Like-Minded [unlocked]

Tamler and Dave devote a full episode to Book 19 of The Odyssey. In what is one of the most emotionally intense chapters of the story so far, Odysseus continues his Cretan lies, has a long tête-à-tête with Penelope, and finally gets recognized by his form...

Reviews

What the people say about us

Apple Podcasts
1 critique

Excellent topics, but I can’t get past the nearly constant giggling / laughing.

Apple Podcasts
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...

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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.

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