Decoding the Gurus

Two academic windbags attempt brief discussions of the controversy at Nature, Bret’s newest conspiracy theory, and the latest vibe sessions in Podcastistan. It goes about as well as expected.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (1hr 18mins).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 55
00:00 Introduction: Science by Podcast
04:04 Nature Joins the Arday Discourse Wave
09:28 Activism and Science
14:40 Academic Prestige Bias
19:08 The Business of Academic Publishing
23:43 Sasha Gusev Being Sensible and Culture War Brainrot
29:04 Bret Weinstein and Jimmy Dore Investigate Charlie Kirk’s Death
36:13 Anomaly Hunting
42:27 Science Washing
45:00 Conspiracy Discrimination and Reasoning Ability
53:46 Academic Debate Norms
59:16 Chris Williamson Promotes Professor Jiang
01:01:01 Vibing Out in Podcast Panels: Hunter Biden x Nick Fuentes
01:05:49 Dave Rubin and Andrew Gold Discuss Political Tribalism
01:08:25 Heterodoxy in 2026: Zaid Jilani on Michael Tracey
01:12:52 Hitler Was a Human and Had Motivations
01:16:33 Outro
Links
Nature: The death of Jason Arday must prompt deep reflection
Stuart Ritchie’s response to the Nature editorial
Matthew Yglesias: Academia is cooked
Sasha Gusev’s response to Matthew Yglesias
Nature’s research and magazine editorial teams
DarkHorse: Was Charlie Kirk Killed With a Drone? Viva Frei and Jimmy Dore
Robson, S. G., Martire, K. A., Pearson, S., Cosgrove, T. J., Jetten, J., Faasse, K., & Hornsey, M. J. (2026). Rejecting conspiracies doesn't necessarily mean that you're smart: The relationship between conspiracy discrimination and reasoning ability. British Journal of Social Psychology, 65(4), e70117.
Modern Wisdom: WW3 DEBATE: “We’re On the Brink of Global Collapse”
Mostly Wise #2: Hunter Biden, Matt McCusker & Duncan Trussell
Channel 5: Nick Fuentes Interview (Ft. Hunter Biden)
I Think You Should Leave: Hot Dog Car Sketch
The Rubin Report: If This Isn’t Stopped, UK’s Fall Is Irreversible | Andrew Gold
Zaid Jilani on Michael Tracey’s contrarianism
Zaid Jilani’s World War II follow-up
Adam Tooze: The Wages of Destruction
Darryl Cooper’s introduction and foreword to Thomas Cyr’s World War II revisionist book
Next on Decoding Academia: Your Brain Is Not an Onion With a Tiny Reptile Inside

In Part Two of our decoding of Mel Robbins, things take a practical turn. But before we get to preoccupied with all that, why don't you pause, take a breath, and, in the context of your body, write down ten ways to make a bad situation worse. Your focus should then be on doing the exact opposite! For example, if one of your answers is to not listen to the podcast, then start listening, right now!
Next, before hitting play, let's work on building a daily manifestation practice. Write down five things you want, then sit in your body, picture yourself doing all the annoying steps, and flood yourself with the feelings of future success. This needs to happen every day.
One more thing: now imagine someone who is one million per cent behind you and ask them what is the best way for you to consume the podcast. They can be alive, dead, or fictional. Greek messenger Gods are permitted. You can even imagine your mother, if you like, but better. Alternatively, why not meet your future self at the front door and ask how listening to the podcast helped them to become so wise, slim, and successful?
There are other options too. You can manifest a legion of ancestors, reconfigure a difficult afternoon by getting sushi, and even transcend the limits of possibility with an elephant murder themed visualization!

You might think this sounds a bit like (too much) planning, mental rehearsal, and just trying to be a bit more positive. But it's much more than that. These mental activities are actually powered by very hard science. Ignore the tiny samples, one-tailed tests, and suspicious p-values... that all sounds like negative thinking.
And now you are finally prepared so choose your technique, release the brake, and visualise the download button. Your future self is waiting. They have a cool scar and some bad news about your future children.
Links
The Mel Robbins Podcast: “World Leading Psychologist: How to Manifest Anything & Create the Life You Want” with Dr Cassandra Vieten
Cassandra Vieten: Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination
Institute of Noetic Sciences: Origins Story
Hershfield, H. E., Goldstein, D. G., Sharpe, W. F., Fox, J., Yeykelis, L., Carstensen, L. L., & Bailenson, J. N. (2011). Increasing saving behavior through age-progressed renderings of the future self. Journal of marketing research, 48(SPL), S23-S37. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3949005/
Robalino, J. D., Fishbane, A., Goldstein, D. G., & Hershfield, H. E. (2023). Saving for retirement: A real-world test of whether seeing photos of one’s future self encourages contributions. Behavioral Science & Policy, 9(1), 1-9. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23794607231190607

We return from our holidays with an indulgent episode that starts light and ends up very dark as we turn to the unavoidable Jason Arday discourse.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 1hr 40 mins)
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 54
00:00 Pecan Pie Introduction
04:10 Solar Punk Matt
08:17 Ireland Trip Report
15:24 Australian Burger Culture
17:32 Manga Cafe Experiments
24:10 Joe Rogan on AI Remote Viewing
29:14 Parapsychology as a Research Field
34:07 A One Man University Level Course in Bad Thinking
36:58 The Young Info Turks
40:53 More Credulity with Ryan Grim over Fauci
42:14 Richard Ebright, Warning Signs, and Radicalisation Spirals
48:28 Vinay Prasad jumping on the Anti-Fauci wagon for the Free Press
52:31 The Jason Arday Affair
54:28 The Surrounding Context
58:18 Polemical Discourse Waves
01:05:22 The Guru Factor
01:08:25 A Realistic View of Universities as Imperfect Institutions
01:12:17 Elite Prestige Bias
01:21:33 Culture War Distortions
01:25:04 The Ethics of Critical Journalism
01:29:50 Inconsistent Standards
01:38:36 Outro
Links
The Jack Nicholson Story from the Always Sunny Podcast
The Manga Cafes in Question
Deposition of InfoWars Host Owen Shroyer
Alex Jones And Roger Stone Interrupt The Young Turks Republican National Convention Coverage
Ken Klippenstein visits the War Room
Ana Kasparian & Owen Shroyer: The UNEXPECTED Conversation on MAGA, DSA & the Uniparty!
Bret Weinstein on InfoWars
Richard Ebright on one of his many Twitter spirals
Joe Rogan on AI Remote Viewing
The Free Press: Vinay Prasad- Anthony Fauci’s Vaccine Deceptions
Ryan Grim being credulous over Fauci and Vaccines
The Guardian: Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: new claims surrounding a star Cambridge professor (Lanre Bakare)
The Atlantic: The Jason Arday Truthers (Helen Lewis)
Front Left: It sure looks like Jason Arday was horrifically wronged (based on citation data) (Jason Stanley)
A Digital Lynching (Carol Cadwalladr)
Tox Report: The Most Unfortunate Thing (Sarah Ditum)
Byline Times: The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday (Nafeez Ahmed)
The Good Law Project: Stand in Solidarity with Jason Arday
Amnesty UK supporting “Arday’s Law”
Simon Baron Cohen on BBC 4 Today talking about Jason Arday
NYT: A Top Scholar’s Fall Shows That Universities Don’t Get It
NYT: Professor’s Death Leaves Behind Hard Questions for Cambridge on Race and Hiring
The Emancipator: The Media Lynched Kason Arday (Ibram X. Kendi)
Gideon M.K.: The Jason Arday Saga Is Terrible And Everyone Involved Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Cambridge’s youngest Black professor Jason Arday on Autism, racism, and learning to read at 18
Open (supporting) letter on the suspension of Nathan Cofnas at Ghent University
Board Member of Ghent University (Dries Bostyn) discussing the disciplinary case on Twitter
Numb at the Lodge: The Carrion-Eaters (Sam Kriss)
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Jason Arday & Me (Musa al-Gharbi)
US Ambassador applies pressure to Ghent University
Nathan Cofnas thanks the US Ambassador for intervening
Academia is Doing Fine, Actually (Nicholas Decker)
Eric Turkheimer substack on Nathan Cofnas' views
Sasha Gusev thread on Nathan Cofnas' views

Are you tired, stuck, or inconveniently constrained by reality? Good news: you may simply be imagining the wrong one.
In Part One of our decoding of Mel Robbins, we explore the world of a self-help mogul who is also just a simple mother of three in Vermont hosting a little ol' podcast with a HUGE global impact. Together with Cassandra Vieten, a psychologist who is (apparently) one of the world's leading researchers on imagination and consciousness, Mel explains how to begin to stop reacting and start imagining, visualising, and manifesting the life you truly deserve. This will lead to self-actualised transcendence through a variety of simple-to-implement techniques. But don't worry, the universe has also put in safeguards: manifestation only works if you use it for good, such as empowering your authentic self. So please manifest enthusiastically without any concern.
In the episode, you will learn about the delicate art of rebranding common sense into complex (proprietary) theories and be shocked to discover that mystical intuitions are a core component of any fully holistic scientific research. Mel's HUGE media business, meanwhile, manifests itself as an intimate personal friendship with each of her millions of listeners.
Expect the usual decorative scholarship, a new Five Second Rule and insights into how to Let Them and Let You, reality tunnels, obstacle courses, a thousand supportive women, lighthouses, tapestries, and the therapeutic potential of fire-breathing dragons. All of it is very hard science, as they repeatedly remind us.
Chris and Matt attempt throughout to give the self-help genre a fair-minded assessment. They even concede that wearing colourful socks and being a bit less miserable are probably harmless, but ultimately their dark reductionist souls are beyond salvation.
Part Two is coming next week. In the meantime, try to visualise it clearly, align your energy, and not to put one foot on the brake as you hit the download button.
Links
The Mel Robbins Podcast: “World Leading Psychologist: How to Manifest Anything & Create the Life You Want” with Dr Cassandra Vieten
A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein: “The Mel Robbins Griftpocalypse” with Princess Weekes and Kat Tenbarge
CBS News: Extended Interview with Mel Robbins
The Mel Robbins Podcast: “Try It for 1 Week: 6 Small Ways to Bring Back the Happiness, Energy, and Fun”
The New York Times: “Mel Schneeberger and Chris Robbins” by Lois Smith Brady
UC San Diego profile: Cassandra Vieten, PhD

Joe Rogan, the Great Khan of podcasting, is once again receiving a travelling jester at court. This time it is Jimmy Carr who arrives bearing gifts: pop evolutionary psychology, dubious history factoids, conservative "common sense", and an apparently bottomless appetite for telling Joe just how important he is.
After listening to their three-hour conversation(!), we conclude there is nothing much of note beyond serving as a nice demonstration of popular "alternative" podcasting in 2026. What you get is a medley of sycophantic praise; regurgitated pop science and historical factoids; right-wing political positions presented as basic common sense; and shocked reactions to pseudo profundity and mundane observations.
Along the way, you will also thrill as you learn Rogan and Carr's takes on motherhood, feminism, work ethic, astrology, religion, taxation, vaccines, human evolution, the Black Death, and stand-up comedy.
As for Jimmy Carr himself, well, according to us: he's a very much your standard middle-aged conservative British person who happens to be a comedian. Rogan's level of crankery makes Jimmy look moderate by comparison, but as we know that's a very low bar.
Links
Jimmy Carr on The Joe Rogan Experience (2326)
Jimmy Carr on Modern Wisdom #953
Schulz, J. F., Bahrami-Rad, D., Beauchamp, J. P., & Henrich, J. (2019). The Church, intensive kinship, and global psychological variation. Science, 366(6466), eaau5141. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau5141
Robinson D. The Black Death and Clerical Prospects in England. In: Bothwell J, Hamilton JS, eds. Fourteenth Century England XII. Fourteenth Century England. Boydell & Brewer; 2022:129-150. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800105904.008
Xu, X., & Barrett, P. M. (2025). The origin and early evolution of feathers: implications, uncertainties and future prospects. Biology Letters, 21(2), 20240517. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0517