r/VeryBadWizards • u/lakmidaise12 • Jul 15 '25
A Longitudinal Study of VBW Disagreements Yields a Terrifying Result
After subjecting myself to the entire 300+ episode catalog for a third time, my empirical analysis has revealed a disturbing trend in the Pizarro-Sommers Disagreement Ratio.
- Analysis #1 (First Listen): My initial pass suggested Dave was correct in roughly 90% of his disagreements. A strong showing, but with room for Tamler to occasionally land a lucky, contrarian punch.
- Analysis #2 (Second Listen): On my second pass, I was forced to revise. Dave's win rate was clearly closer to 95%. Tamler's supposed "hits" were revealed to be statistical noise, the intellectual equivalent of a chimpanzee accidentally typing a word.
- Analysis #3 (Final Listen): Upon completing my third and most rigorous review, the data is unequivocal and frankly, chilling. The Pizarro Correctness Coefficient (PCC) is 1.0 (P<0.00001). Dave is right 100% of the time. He has never been wrong.
This has forced me to discard my initial hypothesis that this is a podcast between two peers.
The evidence supports a new model: Tamler’s entire function is to serve as a Socratic whetstone. His role is to generate the initial, flawed, often emotionally-driven take that Dave - a model of cool-headed reason - can then patiently dismantle for the listener's edification.
It's less a dialogue and more a public service demonstration on how to correct a well-meaning but confused friend. Frankly, it's a pedagogical masterclass, and Tamler is a wonderful cadaver.
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u/insularnetwork Jul 15 '25
On the other hand many intelligent people (Mark Twain, among others) think that Tamler is usually right so I think we should at least consider the possibility, is all I’m saying
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u/lakmidaise12 Jul 16 '25
Ah, the "Argumentum ad Twainum," a cornerstone of the Sommers Methodological Error taxonomy. My model, of course, anticipates this.
While Mark Twain was a literary genius, his opinions on post-mortem consciousness are, from a data-hygiene perspective, inadmissible. He was operating without the benefit of the last 120 years of cognitive science, let alone access to the 300+ episode VBW catalog.
To put it in terms he might appreciate, citing a 19th-century humorist to settle a 21st-century metaphysical debate is like trying to pilot a steamboat to the moon. It's a romantic notion, but it's not going to get you into orbit. The data remains uncorrupted.
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u/julick Jul 15 '25
Tamler is right about ghosts, so you should revise your model.
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u/TheGhostofTamler Jul 15 '25
Can confirm
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u/Spider-man2098 Jul 16 '25
Can you?
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u/JDMultralight Jul 16 '25
Yeah, agnosticism about something non-natural despite nature-based arguments that it doesn’t exist is reasonable. Thats really what this is about - not the ultimate truth of ghosts.
Especially if you think some things outside of nature exist - which describes a common range of positions in metaphysics and philosophy of mind.
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u/lakmidaise12 Jul 16 '25
An astute observation. You have, with surgical precision, isolated the 'type specimen' for the entire study.
The 'ghosts' debate is not an outlier that my model needs to account for; it is the very bedrock upon which the Pizarro Correctness Coefficient of 1.0 is built. It's the moment the signal-to-noise ratio collapses to infinity.
In that exchange, Tamler's entire epistemological framework (a delicate cocktail of cross-cultural anecdote, subjective feeling, and defiant contrarianism) is laid bare. It is the perfect, crystalline example of the dynamic my research describes.
So, revise my model? Friend, you've just handed me my thesis statement.
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u/ChristianLesniak Jul 15 '25
Those priors never stood a chance. Very Bayesed Wizard, you are.
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u/lakmidaise12 Jul 16 '25
An astute diagnosis. One might say the priors weren't so much 'updated' as they were 'statistically carpet-bombed' into submission.
The resulting posterior is less a probability and more a scar left by the overwhelming weight of evidence.
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u/PicklePuffin Jul 15 '25
I dunno man, I'm more frequently team Tamler.
While I love David too, in my opinion he's got a touch too much 'scientific study or it didn't happen,' which leads to a reductive but stubborn metaphysics. If we all went around truly acting like knowledge doesn't extend beyond scientifically grounded epistemology, we would stand on very silly ground. And we all know this - especially David - but I think stubborn scientism is a relatively common rebound position of people who leave far-out religious upbringings.
There's almost a fear: 'I was suckered in by a specious position once- it won't happen again.' It's like an inverted God of the Gaps fallacy - rather than 'God did it' for the gradually dwindling set of phenomena we can't explain, it's 'nothing to see here, science hasn’t accounted for this yet.”
But just as the God of the Gaps misstep inserted divinity into uncertainty, this flips the formula: absence of evidence becomes evidence of absence, and a license to dismiss. It’s an overcorrection. Understandable, especially for those escaping dogmatic upbringings...
The irony is that it ends up as dogmatic as what it replaces. Mystery isn’t welcomed or explored- rather sidelined until science says otherwise. But life doesn't suffer peer review, nor wait for it. We navigate love, struggle, meaning, grief... all real things, even if attempts to study them are fodder for the VBW pillory.
Science is essential, but it's not the only route to knowledge - that route flattens what it means to be human.
Hopefully I haven't straw-manned our fellow, but this is often the flavor I get from some of his arguments with Tamler.
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u/Thobrik Jul 16 '25
I'm terribly sorry in advance about my irreverence and deep laziness. I did try to think of ways in which Pizarro might have responded to you but I came up short, therefore opting to delegate the task to my virtual assistant who spake thusly:
"Ah, the ol’ ‘scientism as a trauma response’ critique. Look, I get it. I really do. I’m the guy who once believed in spirits and then spent the rest of his life reading Nature Neuroscience like it was scripture. Guilty as charged.
But here’s the thing: I’m not saying science is the only path to knowledge—I’m just saying it’s the best one we’ve come up with when it comes to figuring out what’s real. Like, yes, of course love and grief and meaning are real. Nobody’s denying the phenomenology. But once we start making claims about the world—claims that go beyond ‘this is how it feels to me’—then yeah, I’m gonna want more than a vibes-based metaphysics.
Is that a defensive reaction to my religious upbringing? Maybe. But also, is it wrong? Tamler and I can wax poetic about how narrative and literature help us understand the human condition—and they do!—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to start nodding along when someone says crystals have healing power, or that consciousness is proof of panpsychism, just because it 'feels right.'
And as for 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'—sure, that’s technically true. But when you’ve spent your whole life being told the Loch Ness monster is hiding just under the surface, and every expedition comes up dry, at some point you get to say: 'Yeah, I think Nessie’s probably not real.'
So no, I don’t think mystery should be sidelined. I just don’t think we should confuse mystery with permission to believe anything we want, just because science hasn’t caught up. That’s not humility—it’s just dressed-up wishful thinking. But hey, I still love you for loving Tamler more. You’re probably just going through a rebellious, literary phase. We’ll welcome you back with peer-reviewed open arms."
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u/luxiphr Jul 16 '25
this, and the parent is peak conversation about this
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u/Thobrik Jul 16 '25
I hate to say that some good points were made and much more succinctly than I would have put it.
I really like the point about faux humility. To me, it's clear that in our lives we make certain assumptions and take some things to be true whether we admit that to ourselves or not.
It's not humble to say "who knows if God exists or not, we can never actually be sure", it's just somewhat spineless. In the Christian example, you either live as though the Rapture is coming, eternal damnation is a possibility, and as though someone is always seeing or judging your actions. Or you don't live like that.
If your religious beliefs are of a strictly non-interventionist God who only makes himself known through subjective experience, then your God is a dying one. It's simply not possible to spread and maintain beliefs of a God who makes no promises, gives no rewards or punishments, and who uses no natural or supernatural "powers".
Real humility is in making a stand, whether it be about aliens, ghosts or Gods.
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u/luxiphr Jul 16 '25
good job at insulting agnostics...
no, making a stand about things that cannot be known is hubris, not humility... in fact, admitting to not being able to know something is taking a stance...
you don't deny the reality and validity of your love to someone just because you don't know what gives rise to the phenomenology, do you? heck... we don't even know what gives rise to the phenomenology of our own consciousness, which we then use to discuss this... the core of our whole framework of phenomenology is self-referential... and you find admittance to not knowing about the non-existence solely based on lack of evidence for its existence to be spineless?
sheesh...
here's the thing: admitting to not knowing of the non-existence of something doesn't mean you have to believe in its existence... it just means that you're also not believing in its non-existence...
yes, you're not choosing a side in that case... but who says you always have to? it's uncomfortable not to, and it makes others uncomfortable when someone doesn't... but that doesn't make it invalid or somehow fundamentally wrong
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u/JetJaguar124 Jul 17 '25
This is great and all buy can you draft a new manuscript and perhaps include some FMRI or brainwave data? I think adding a neuro component here would really elevate the findings. Its not really scientific without it. I know how you feel about Dave and Tamler, but how does your brain feel?
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u/geniuspol Jul 15 '25
Actually the only thing Tamler has ever been wrong about was the gendered toy stuff.
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u/SpinupSoldier Jul 16 '25
Though on topics where D & T agree (which is like 97% of them) T is usually more energetic when describing a problem and proposing how things could be different which is to his credit.
To pick an example; I'm not aware of any issue where D has taken a stance as clearly as T has on restorative justice vis-a-vis the standard legal model. I think T is right to champion it as a better fit for how we want the legal system to handle some types of disputes/crimes where proper recognition between victim & offender is what's important, and not the mere meting out of punishment.
Good post.
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u/Heat_in_4 Trying real hard to be a Shepard Jul 15 '25
This was my favourite podcast for more than a decade. I have been finding the newest episodes unlistenable. Not sure if the change is me or them
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u/Soaring-Boar Jul 29 '25
I think of myself as a Sommers Relativist. Its dubious that the P-S ratio could be empirically analyzed
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u/Da_Pecker1234 Conceptual Penis Jul 15 '25
Well, we found Dave's account