Episode 326: The Most Important Episode of Your (Academic) Life

0:00Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. I feel like I'm doing God's work. You know what I'm saying? Just because I don't have nothing to pass around for people to put money in the bucket don't mean I ain't doing God's work. I feel like I'm doing God's work. The great end of us has spoken.

0:34Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

0:42Who are you? Who are you? I'm a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Good man. They think deep thoughts, and with no more brains than you have. Pay no attention to that man.

1:03Anybody can have a brain.

1:07You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Summers. Dave, we're recording kind of early for us now, but by the time this episode comes out, the Seahawks and the Patriots, the team who went 4-13 in each of the last two years, they will have faced each other in the Super Bowl. Seahawks are a fairly big favorite. Four and a half points. Who you got? Oh, man.

1:38I got the Patriots because you're my friend. And I feel like I should just put it out karmically that way. Plus, Seahawks, eh. It's just such a mid-franchise. I don't care how good they are in any given year. It's boring if the Seahawks win. Were the Seahawks the ones who lost, like, barely that one year? Yeah, well, we had that famous, it was in 2014, I think, Malcolm Butler interception. The Malcolm Butler interception is one of the, like, top five sports moments of my life because we had given up at that point. Like, we were pretty much done, and then he had, you know, they kind of inexplicably threw the ball instead of giving it to Marshawn Lynch, beast mode.

2:13But it was also just an incredible play, and then, yeah, and then we won. It's actually amazing how many Super Bowls you guys have won by not, like, by kind of the skin of your teeth. Yeah, well, but we've also lost a couple by the skin of our teeth. But even that's overblown. I mean, you know, there are seven-year-olds who have no memory of the Patriots being in the Super Bowl. Yeah, that's a poor seven-year-old. What a tragic life. You know, I almost asked you to hijack the opening question, to ask you some version of what you thought about Bill Belichick not being a first ballot Hall of Famer.

2:50I mean, you know, I think I have complicated feelings about Bill Belichick. I mean, I think, obviously, he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, and that's, like, a stupid, even debate, and the reasons behind it are so petty and ridiculous. But, you know, Belichick, one of the reasons we were really bad for the last, like, five or six years is he started running the team into the ground. He couldn't draft to save his life. He couldn't, like, sign a good free agent. And he just got kind of old and stubborn. And then, now, like, it's just gotten worse.

3:22Like, you know, the stuff at UNC and the girlfriend. You know the reason why is totally he's getting drained. He's getting his balls drained on the regular. Well, the funny thing about that is you would think people would be like, oh, like, tip your cap. But she's so scary. She's such a kind of, like, classic succubus kind of figure that, like, nobody was even doing that. Everyone was just kind of worried about him more than they were, like, you know, fist bump, like, nice, you know. For those who don't know Hall of Fame, when you're eligible, the very first year you're eligible

3:55and you get voted in, that's the first ballot, Hall of Fame. We have a lot of international. Yeah, and, you know, like, Belichick, he's won six Super Bowls on his own, two Super Bowls with the Giants. I mean, he's been in, like, 12 Super Bowls. It's, like, absolutely not up for debate whether he belongs there. I think people just don't like that you guys were such cheaters. Yeah, don't even get me started on those things. But that's what makes me start to feel mad about Belichick. But actually, I don't really care. Because, you know, the Hall of Fame, this isn't the first ridiculous scandal in all of the Hall of Fames.

4:28But I do want to say we had one of our beloved patrons in last month's Ask Us Anything asked how I was going to feel when Buffalo and Josh Allen kicks the living fuck out of us in the, like, AFC championship game.

4:47I said, having lived in upstate New York for this long, I know that there is no chance that there will be a happy outcome for Buffalo Bills. It's just, it is induction in the Humean successful form. Right, it proves induction actually works. Finally. We can be confident the sun will rise tomorrow. Yeah, no, but, you know, in response to that question of how I would feel, I guess we'll never know, you know. Sorry, I screwed up your whole setup by interrupting you.

5:18That's fine, it wasn't. It was a little bit. This is a beloved patron anyway. Hey, I have sort of a real-time announcement to make to the Very Bad Wizards listener. I just received an email from Paul Bloom, a text. I'm in the Epstein files. Really?

5:40There is an email with my name. If you type in my name, you will find... Where do I go? I actually don't know how to search them. He sent me a screenshot of it. It's actually from the one event where I met him. Yeah. Apparently he emailed John Brockman, the agent, head of edge.org. And the agency that I was representing me as well. That's right. And the email is from John Brockman to Jeffrey Epstein. Sorry I missed you flying back tomorrow and we'll be in New York City for the weekend. Will you be there?

6:10Here are the people confirmed so far. Nicholas Christakis, Daniel Dennett, Jennifer Jaquette, Danny Kahneman, Joshua Nobe, Rob Kurzban, David Pizarro, and Treisman. Wow.

6:20You know, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see you in there, but Jennifer Jaquette, you know?

6:29What else should I expect coming from the Epstein files? I'm not going to lie, dude. So I did a search in my email for Jeffrey Epstein's name because there are a lot of academics who would reach out to him. He funded them. And I was like, what if I forgot that I cold emailed him or something? So I was pretty sure I hadn't. Asking about that 16-year-old, what if I emailed him? I can't remember. I wouldn't have emailed him about a girl. Would you have asked for advice on how to seduce your...

7:03Oh, man. I don't like that some people are like, well, you know, nobody knew back then, you know, 2012, whatever. When I met him, it was 2013. All I had to do was read the Wikipedia page and it was already, it was obvious. You know, he'd been arrested. Like, there's no excuse for hanging out. Yeah. For trafficking, right? Or for something. Yeah. For something. For something. For like assault. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Should have known better. Money fucking washes away people's morals like instantly sometimes. I think we're going to learn a lot. There was the giant's owner was recently kind of outed in like a serious way.

7:39I don't know if like our government is at a place where like the really top people can fall. But, you know, if Larry Summers can go down the way he did. But I'd be very nervous right now if I was someone implicated. Yeah. All right. So, that's enough of that depressing stuff. There's so much that's depressing going on in the world. You don't come here to hear us talk about that. Let's talk about something for our younger listeners. Our Zoomer, some Zoomer formatted content.

8:14Yeah. And also for like high school students who are thinking about applying and what to major in when they get to college. That's right. We are here to help you out. Like we are better than U.S. News, World Report and all your private fancy college tutors, which is kind of unbelievable that that thing exists. You don't need any of that. You just need us right now. Tier ranking academic fields. Yeah. So, you know, if you're not familiar with tier ranking, it's a common format.

8:46Your idea was to do academic fields. Are you just distancing yourself from that? No, no, no. My idea was the tier rankings. I want to give you credit for the good idea. Can you explain exactly what a tiered list is? Yeah. Because I had never heard of it before yesterday. Right. So it is a format that is essentially five rows from S, which is top tier, then A, B, C, D in decreasing order of ranking. And the way that it works is there is actually a website called tiermaker.com that everybody

9:17uses when they're doing this little exercise. And you just drag and drop, in this case, in conversation with my co-host, we will decide which of these fields goes in which category. Are they D tier or are they all the way up to awesome super S tier? All right. You've generated a list of fields. Oh, yeah. But first, right. We got to talk about how we're going to be deciding this. So I wanted to say there's nothing but vibes for me. I mean, there's a lot, but it's mostly going to be vibes for me where it's not like I'm

9:49going to have great reasons to shit on entire fields. But this is just shooting from the hip. What's my gut reaction to this entire field? This is, yeah, David Pizarro unshackled by the norms of politeness within the profession. Right. Because it's not like I have like some sort of value based like, okay, how much money do you make? How much do you contribute to society? Like some of that stuff might be going into the intuition and we'll talk about it, but don't think that I have any real well-developed opinions. Yeah. Obviously, I think that's true of me, too.

10:21But then are we thinking of this in terms of like what would be good to major in if you were a student or what actually contributes to our understanding of the world or what contributes most to human life? Like all of those things. I hadn't thought about it really, but I like what you said, choosing a major. Like I think that captures a lot. I think that captures most of the other things you said. But so, and that's kind of a fun way to think about it. Like, okay, your kid or you or whatever is about to choose your college major.

10:55So, yeah. What do you think about using that as the frame? Sure. I like it. And if you're in college right now, hopefully you're going to have time to change your major. Right. When you find out what the S tier is. Yeah. If we give you a field like a D or a B. And I think that the interesting part for us will be that we have to agree on what tier these go in. So, if you have very high and I have very low, we're going to have to compromise. In a way that we don't usually have to do. Does only one go into S? Like the God tier? No. You can have as many as you are. You can have God tier. Exactly.

11:25Okay. Good. All right. So, I'll read out the academic fields. They are anthropology, art history. I've combined Asian, Latin American, and African studies. They're all the same to you? They're all, I mean, to everybody. Statistics, biology, chemistry, classics, comparative literature, computer science, economics, engineering, English, film and media, gender and sexuality studies, history, journalism, mathematics, music,

11:57neuroscience, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, religious studies, and sociology. All right. How should we do this? Do you want to do it alphabetically? Okay. Alphabetical. Anthropology. I mean, I'm tempted to put this kind of high in terms of what I feel like the field could be and can be at its best. Yeah. Because at its worst, it's kind of insufferable. Yeah. It's the biggest window of, like, what you could get on the one hand, which is maybe the

12:29best, like an S-tier major if you're working with, like, really good people. Yeah. And you might go out to somewhere, like, that you've never been before and would never go in your whole life just to study. Totally. So, like, just absolutely, like, fascinating. Or you could get bogged down in their petty internal debates. Yeah. But the possibility, the potential to learn interesting things is super high. And, like, that's kind of high on my list of priorities. I'd happily give it an A or a B. I'd say let's do A because potential, I think, is really important.

13:01And you can always, you know, audible if it turns out, like, your particular department isn't representing the best of it. Right. And my daughter's an anthropology major, so she'll be happy. Oh, nice. I didn't know that. We could put it in the S if you want. No, she's confident enough. She doesn't need us to gas her up. Art history. You know, like, I'm very pro-humanities and especially aesthetic appreciation. Like, it wouldn't have been a good major for me, but that's just because I'm a bit of a Philistine when it comes to art. I loved the one art history class I took.

13:33Like, I could see myself studying it. I do think that even with my love of it, I would kind of be questioning why I'm doing it the whole time. Yeah. B? Yeah. B is generous. I was going to say even C, but yeah. All right. Do C. Fuck it. All right. Let's see. Let's see. God forbid people, you know, actually appreciate Monet and Escher and Rembrandt. Remember the difference between Manet and Monet. I really do. Can we bump it up to at least, well, all right, fine. That's fine. C. You can, you don't need to major in art history to appreciate good art.

14:06That's true, but we can revisit it. Okay. Yeah. So Asian, Latin American, African studies. Here's where we get canceled. By law, I'm going to be fucked in Texas right now. Whatever I say. You're going to be fucked by someone. Yeah. Get the lube. I'm just saying I quit. I'm leaving. This is, to me, it's an extremely wide range of things. Like, I think you could study some super fascinating, interesting things in some of these departments. I also think that they are primed to get bogged down by stuff that I think is not important.

14:39What Brian Leiter might call charlatanism also. Yeah. I think, like, you know, I feel like I have to tiptoe around what I'm saying, but sometimes you can study a lot of the things in those areas from another field, and maybe sometimes that's more fruitful. But I also really have very little idea what goes on actually in these programs. That's true. You know, I don't know too much about it either, like what their general approach is.

15:11You know, if you wanted to study, like, Borges, would you go to a Latin American studies major, or would you be in a literature major or a Spanish department? I'm not quite sure. Yeah. I'd be fine putting these in B. Yeah. I think if it's a B, I can still teach in Texas, but I'm not sure. Like, if it's an A, I'm out, so I'll need a job.

15:36Biology. I associate bio with pre-meds. Like, it's like the pre-med major. That's so funny, because I associate it with, like, if you're going to do one of these sciences, like a STEM, basically do biology, because that's always seemed to me to be the most interesting. I was very into, for a while, philosophy of biology. But I think you might be right that a lot of people just do it to be pre-med. It is, at least at our school, the biggest pre-med major. But I agree with you. I think it's, like, super cool.

16:06Like, everything from evolutionary theory to biomechanical stuff, like, I'd happily put it in the A tier. I would put it in the A, too, because, also, it's not the worst thing in the world to be a doctor. Right. We did not include professional programs in this. Yeah, we didn't. Chemistry. D. Too boring. Like, so boring. Like, I took AP chemistry, like, I did the things, but, like, it's so boring. Not interested. It is boring.

16:36Can I put it at a C? Like, I have a little bit, like... For what? No, no, D. No, D. Let's do it. Sorry, chem majors. Classics. This is another one, like, anthropology, maybe Asian and Latin American African studies, where I feel like it's a wide range of outcomes. Like, I do think, like, studying the classics could be one of the most important things that you do in college. I'm a little biased because when I did a study abroad as a undergrad in London, I couldn't do English courses, so I had to do classics courses.

17:16And the classics courses I took, at least from me at the time, were excruciating. They were awful, and they were very much focused on the language and, like, kind of drained the interest out of it that I could only recover when I started teaching at U of H in the, you know, the human situation course, kind of great books course. So, like, I think it's a great field, but if I was as an advisor, I would make sure that they teach it in ways that don't make you want to claw your eyeballs out.

17:50Yeah, I'm a little torn, too. I know a couple of professors in classics here, and they're awesome, and the things that they're interested in are awesome. But they also are very down on classics education and classics departments. Yeah. Like, they think that it's sort of just, like, going downhill and, like, we might eliminate classics soon. But is that just pessimistic about the future or pessimistic about how it's being taught? I think they're pessimistic about how it's being taught and what the emphasis is. And they would be fine in another department.

18:22Like, so one of them actually is also in philosophy and chooses to be more in philosophy than in classics. And the other one is squarely classics, like, does Latin stuff. But I think he'd be fine in history or something like that, you know, or in Latin if that existed. So, yeah, I'm a little down on it. I would say C. I would put it with art history. I would like to put it up to a B just because even some of the stuff that I'm not interested in, like, you know, their focus on the language and this kind of the scholarly aspect of it where they're assembling manuscripts and doing all that stuff.

18:56Like, I wouldn't find that personally interesting. But I think it's good that it happens. It's how we have a lot of the texts that we have and love. So, I mean, I'm happy to put it at a C because of just the reality of a lot of moribund classics programs. Yeah. So, okay, that's fine. But I just want people to know that that doesn't mean the classics themselves shouldn't be studied. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. And like I said, we can revisit. Yeah. Comparative literature. I don't know that much about what goes on here other than, like, in my mind, it's like a lot of just, like, Freud and Lacan, like, interpreting of texts.

19:34Yeah. It's kind of interesting because it is where I think a lot of that stuff goes on from what I understand. And I don't even know if there's a lot of comparative literature programs left. Is literary criticism the same? Sometimes, but sometimes those are just in regular English departments. So, I want to say this about comparative literature. I took a complate course as a undergrad, and it was one of the most meaningful courses to me. That's where I read Jock the Fatalist and his master. That's where I read The Golden Ass, I remember, which we often cover in human situation.

20:08And it was, like, kind of a crucial course for me in terms of loving literature. Now, that was probably the professor and not the field, but, like, I would at least want to put it at a C because of that. Okay. I'm fine with it at a C.

20:25Computer science. This might be our first real disagreement because I want to rank this super high. D. I would want to rank it as a D.

20:35Yeah, we're going to have to do some haggling here. We're going to have to haggle. So, I think that it is the forefront of so much that's going on. It's part of cognitive science, right? It's, like, understanding the mind, I think, can be done through computer science. So much of what... Disagree. Just... Yeah.

20:54Attempts at understanding the mind. Basically, like, the tools that computer scientists use are not only interesting in and of themselves. They are at the heart of so much of what is going on in all these fields. Just all kinds of modeling and data. Like, and then now bring in AI into the mix. Like, as down as you might be on it as a major, like, I don't think you could do poorly. The only bad thing is there are so many comp sci majors. I guess my rebuttal to that would be for so long, everyone would say, learn to code. And then it's like, oh, no.

21:25Like, that's worthless because AI can do that, you know, right now. So, like, what you're learning in computer science will not be necessarily relevant five years on. Now, maybe you'll still have some advantages over other people. But also, like, they're destroying the world. They're destroying what's good about the world. They're making everything just annoying and making it suck. And, like, the computer science majors are at the kind of forefront of this movement that I stand so, you know, morally and aesthetically, like, opposed to that I couldn't put this high personally.

21:59But, you know, I also, one of my brother's best friends, probably his best friend, is a computer science guy, works for Google. And he's awesome. So, I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here. I think a lot of our listeners are computer science majors in the past. You know, we have wonderful ability to analyze our AUAs and turn them into chapters because somebody's a good coder. Yes. So, they can be a force for good, for sure. Absolutely. And there's a lot of things I obviously like about what computers have brought.

22:32But it's just, at this time right now, like, I wouldn't have had this reaction to it five years ago, even. It is as mixed a bag as it can get. Yeah. So, if you want to put it as a B, that's the highest I'm comfortable going. Yeah. I was going to say, I knew coming out, like, I would probably want to put it in an S and you wanted it as a D. So, I think a B would be our – neither of us should be happy, really, is what we're saying. I am not happy.

22:59Economics. D. D. D. Yeah. Like, that's the easiest one for me, actually.

23:07Engineering, which isn't split up into different kinds of engineering, but it is just engineering. Again, I have very little idea what goes on. I accept that, like, most of my students are engineering majors of some kind. They really need humanity, so you're doing the Lord's work. Yeah. Here's my pitch for putting it fairly high. I think what engineering students are doing is what you might consider the best aspect of science. It's, like, actually rubber to the road, like, making things work. Like, not claiming, you know, deep metaphysical truths.

23:40It's like, does this equation make this bridge not collapse under the weight? Yeah. And then, great. Yeah. It's boring, though. That's the downside. I would think. And they don't seem excited by it either. No. I think a lot of people do this, and maybe rightly so, because maybe unlike computer science, some of these skills were guaranteed to still need. And so, I think a lot of students do it, because it is an actually practical major, and in a lot of the situations that these students are coming from, and with the student loans and all of that, like, that might be really important.

24:17So, I'm willing to put this high. I just wish those engineering students had more exposure to other things to enrich their lives. And more joy in their heart. And more joy in their heart, yeah. Yeah. I'd be fine at B or C for this one. I would put it at B, I think. Okay. Because at least it's not bullshit, I think. Yeah, totally. Exactly. It is the least bullshit of all of these, I think. Because the wrong answer means actual failure in the world. Yeah, exactly. There's very few others you can say that about.

24:47Right. All right. English. You, the English major. You know, this is, me switching from philosophy to English major fairly early on in my college career was, I think, hugely beneficial. I wouldn't be, like, anything that I am right now if I hadn't been an English major. I mean, I had grown up. My mom was always trying to get me to read stuff. And so I did. I think I was fairly well-read as a college kid. But nothing, like, the English major introduced me to stuff that I would never have come across.

25:21And I probably just wouldn't have developed, I wouldn't have developed a love for it like I did. Like, the reason I took an English class, I was like, oh, my God. Like, this is the class I get to read these awesome books. And so, for me, this is an S tier. Now, like, I think some English departments aren't good. And some of them, you know, at least if you read the reports, have become, like, hugely political. And they're de-emphasizing some of the stuff that I love. I have no idea to what extent that's true. Like, in my experience talking to the people I know in English departments, they're not like that.

25:55So, I think that typically those kinds of objections are made by hysterics and anti-woke kind of grift from the last, like, 10, 15 years. So, assuming it's not right there, I would put it at an S or an A at the least. So, I can't speak to it because our Cornell department is now called Literatures in English. Do you remember talking about this when they changed their name for exactly the reasons that you were saying?

26:29Yeah. But they were still—that's an annoying little thing in and of itself. But did it affect, like, what they taught is the question. I seriously doubt it. I think our discussion at the time was, like, you do something like this and you think that you've done it. And so, you stop doing more important things. Yes. So, here's the only pushback I would give is, like, you are an exceptionally good case of an English major. It is a major that many people view—I don't know if it's true—as a major that you can do nothing with. Yeah. And I don't know to what extent that's true.

27:01I think, you know, with a lot of these things, if you go to a good school, you can get away with being an English major maybe more, practically speaking, than you can if you go to a, you know, more mid or lower-ranked school. But, yeah, I also think that I have this weird optimism that you should study the thing that you want. I remember a student actually telling me this who was an English major. I remember saying, are you getting shit from your parents or relatives?

27:32And she says, yeah, but, you know, like, I can put up with that. And anyway, like, it seems like everything's going to hell anyway. I might as well study what I want to study, you know? Yeah. And I think that's, like, whether or not everything's going to hell, I do think there is something to be said for just studying the thing that you want to study. And if you're interested in books and literature and English literature, literatures in English in particular, then I just think, like, that's a great major because you're going to get exposed to a lot of things that it's going to enrich your life.

28:05And you'll figure out a way to make money. And that might be, like, unduly optimistic. It might be coming from a place of privilege, all of that. I still think there's some truth to it. Yeah. And you're not guaranteed anything if you take one of these more, quote, unquote, practical majors either, you know? No, I'm fine ranking this high. I agree with what you're saying about there are some of these majors that are kind of a neutral when it comes to, like, your career. Yeah. Where, you know, sure, if you wanted to be an English PhD, I think we'd have to have a more serious conversation about whether that's a good idea.

28:37But you can be an English major and go work at a fucking consulting group. That'd be fine. You know, it's not going to hinder you. Go to Palantir. You go to Palantir. You built your soul and now destroy your soul. Or just stop the souls from destroying or, you know, slow it down. Yeah, get it from the inside. Yeah. So I'm fine S or A if you feel stronger. Yeah. I'll put it at S. Why not? Okay. I would also say, last thing about English, I think I was better as a philosopher because I was an English major than I would have been if I had been a philosophy major.

29:10Yeah. All right. When we come back, we will finish off this definitive list, this tiered ranking of academic fields. It's not just because I'm actually not. It's not just because I'm not. I'm not. I mean, if you feel stronger. It's not just because I was... It's not just because I'm here. I'm so sorry. I'll probably be in a seat. It's not just because I'm here.

29:46I'm here. Thank you.

30:17Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. I hope you're having fun with our rankings, but before we continue, just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everybody for all your support. We wouldn't be doing this, certainly not for this long, without it. We really appreciate it.

30:49If you want to reach out to us, we always appreciate that. You can reach us at verybadwizards at gmail.com. We read everything. We don't always have time to reply, but we do see everything. So thank you. You can tweet to us at Tamler at Pease or at Very Bad Wizards. And as it says in show notes where we provide a link, we are doing something with the Very Bad Wizards subreddit. We are going to be doing an Ask Us Anything at 6 p.m. Eastern, starting at 6 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, February 21st.

31:20So if you're unfamiliar with that, we'll just be logged on and trying to respond to questions as they come in. So yeah, show up there. We'd really appreciate seeing you and seeing your questions. And hopefully it's fun. So you can also just go hang out at reddit.com slash r slash verybadwizards if you want to get into some arguments with some listeners. You can follow us on Instagram at verybadwizards. And if you have it in your heart, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.

31:52Subscribe there too. Yeah, all of those things. We have no idea if it does anything, but we really appreciate it. It does something to our hearts. If you want to support us in more tangible ways, we always appreciate that. You can go to our support page on our website. You can see the ways that you can support us there, donating on PayPal, buying some swag. But if you want to get something back for your generosity, you can join our Patreon. And if you do that, you will get some back.

32:25At $2 a month and up, you get ad-free episodes and you get access to all of my beat compilations. Well, I'm working on number 10 right now. You can join at $5 a month and up and you'll get access to all of the bonus content that we've done. You'll be able to listen to our monthly AUAs and you'll have access to our back catalog of podcasts like The Reintegrators, The Severance Podcast with Paul Bloom, or our Deadwood Podcast, The Ambulators, and our ongoing series on The Odyssey, which we're having a lot of fun doing.

32:58We're five episodes in and I'm really enjoying it. You can, yeah, that's at $5 a month and up. At $10 a month and up, you get all of that and you get to vote on an episode topic. You also get access to our Brothers Karamazov five-part series, Sandler's Lectures on Plato Symposium, and some of my intro psych lectures. And finally, at $20 and up per month, you get all of that, plus you get to ask us anything. You get to be the ones who ask us questions. We're really enjoying that.

33:28And you also get access to the video version of us answering questions. If for some godforsaken reason you care to watch us as we're answering, we post those. So once again, thank you, everybody. Remember, join us Saturday the 21st on r slash VeryBadWizards. If you want to ask us anything, talk to each other, talk to us. And now back to our tier rankings. All right. Film and media. Well, I obviously want to put this high because, you know, my daughter. We can cut to the chase and say, you're right.

33:59Your daughter's a film. Obviously, you love film. You've given me more of a love for film. My gut would be to put this as an A, as useless as it might be. But I don't even think it's useless. Like, you know, my daughter is very, like, one of the ways that she's excelling, especially, is in editing. And that is considered to be a very practical because, you know, it's not just like you're going to edit for Martin Scorsese or, like, there's a lot of things. So it's not, I don't even think it's that impractical. Did you see that there was just a story in The Atlantic that came out saying film students don't watch movies anymore?

34:34They don't have the attention span. And it's one of those kind of, like, social media. Yeah. So I've been getting a lot of texts on that subject. It's better than the texts I've been getting about the Epstein files. That's how you're just all over the Epstein files.

34:49All right. S, A. S. All right. I owe you one, though, with those two. Gender and sexuality studies. Oh, man. I just can't talk about this, I think, by law. You know, personally, I find something like Asian, Latin, American, African studies to be more interesting. But that's just my bias. Like, I think Nikki, for instance, does philosophy of feminism. Like, she'd be very comfortable in a department. Does this include women's studies?

35:20Let's say it does. Yeah. Well, you know, all of this has just gotten banned from Texas A&M. They dissolved their department, and they've been, like, shutting down anyone who even wants to teach modules on that. I do think some of the, like, women's studies and the philosophy of feminism stuff is super interesting. But I wonder if that comes better from philosophy. I actually don't know. Yeah. And when you're thinking, like, if I'm being honest at the kinds of departments that might let the silliest things into their journals, this might be one.

35:51So I don't want to overcorrect because I'm worried about it. Like, I don't know. See? See? Yeah. But I think art, history, classics, comparative literature, you're in good company. Yeah.

36:01History. This is so, like, what do we hope to gain by this? An intro segment. Because clearly nothing else. History. This is a big blind spot for me. I'm not a history guy. So to me, you know, especially for humanities, this would be lower. But what do you think? I like history, although I never was, like, a history guy. Like, there's a lot of history that I enjoy consuming. But it's, I don't know how much it's academic, you know. I'd say it belongs there with classics and art history.

36:35Yeah, see? Like, yeah. Admitting that this reflects some personal disinterest that I feel is a vice of mine. Yeah. On my best. Like, my most excited about history, I would put it at a B. Yeah. But, yeah. Journalism. I almost think we shouldn't even have this, because do you have any idea what goes on in a journalism major? No, but I'm going to make a controversial, uneducated claim. Okay. Whatever's being taught in journalism isn't doing well enough. Like, it's just not, it's just not sticking.

37:06I really think that the value of a journalism education is in the ethics that journalists adopt. And I think that rogue journalism, that never goes through, like, thinking about what the role of a journalist is, is bad. But I'm not sure that journalists, even ones who are educated in journalism, are doing much better. So, in a completely ignorant fashion, put it as a D. Just to defend journalism programs. I think a lot of why journalism today is in the state that it's in is not because of the journalists themselves.

37:43It's because of the economics. Because of the people who own the outlets, for instance. Yeah. And also the economy of, like, what actually sells. Yeah. And so, a lot of the things that we respect about journalism and appreciate about good journalism is just not viable right now. And so, like, I kind of feel like it should go at least into the C because of that. Like, I don't think it's because they're not being educated enough in their journalism programs. All right. I'm convinced. Let's see.

38:13And I probably would have put it a little higher because I'm kind of interested in journalism. Yeah. And if I'm a Philistine about anything, it's about news media. Yeah. So, just for the journalists out there or journalist majors, I would have put that higher. Any journalist who wants to write about my work, though, I'll put it as an S tier. Yeah. Mathematics. Yeah. We just got a question in our monthly Ask Us Anything from a math major. Oh. Interesting. I don't know if you saw this. No, I have not. So, I'll tell you that this is one of the few that I think belong in S tier, and I'll tell you why.

38:49So, let me read this, and maybe you'll change your mind about that. Okay. Hey, Wizards, what was your favorite class you took that wasn't part of your major? I majored in math, like an idiot, as an undergrad, but took a class called Love and Romance in Modern Japanese Literature. We read 300 pages of The Tale of Genji, often considered the first modern novel, then a bunch of contemporary Japanese authors to understand his influence on modern depictions of love in the country's literature. It introduced me to wonderful writers.

39:20When I look back at undergrad, it's classes like that I remember, not abstract algebra or stochastic modeling or elementary analysis. Do you have something similar? So, you know, I think, like, that's interesting that you don't necessarily look back on your classes with any fondness. For that specific person. For that specific person. As a person who is not, like, definitely math is not my strong suit, I still find reading about math fascinating.

39:54It's, like, the closest we have to a language for understanding the world. And I think if you're skilled enough to learn advanced math, you can work in almost any field and make a real good contribution. So, just in terms of the power of the tool that mathematics is, I can't imagine anything more powerful. Yeah, and there's certainly a certain kind of philosopher that worships mathematics, thinks it's, like, the highest calling.

40:25Yeah, and I don't even mean, like, metaphysically true. Like, most math people who I know don't think that they're, like, metaphysically, they're not, like, Platonists about numbers or anything. Like Jeffrey Waterman. But we've had breakthroughs in almost every field, even things like language. Translating texts that we have no idea what to do rely on mathematical techniques. Like, I just think it's one of the most powerful tools, as boring as it might be, for somebody like me. Yeah, so that's an interesting one because it's, like, you want there to be math majors, but you don't necessarily want to be one or you wouldn't want your kid to be one.

41:03Right. If my kid were really interested in math and could do it, this is the other thing. Like, there is a ceiling on how good people can do math. I know, and I will say that, like, I never took a math class in college because I tested out of it and I wasn't interested. But I found it very fulfilling at times. And I know that's true of Eliza, too. Like, there is something, it's stretching your brain in a way that feels super satisfying, even if, you know, it's not something that you're going to think about later. So I'd put it as A.

41:35If you want to put it at S, I'll even do that because I owe you one, like I said. Thank you. I think I will put it at S because I don't know what else I would put above math, to be honest. Well, it's a little bit of a slap in the face to one of our highest tier listeners, but... Oh, yeah. Well, he just said he didn't find it memorable. Music. I would put this very high. Like, I have no ability at this, but I know it's a very demanding major. We get a lot of music majors and philosophy in Honors College, too.

42:08And they seem like they're being stretched to their limits, but, you know, like, there's some amazing things that they do. It's a very good music school here. And, yeah, I would put this, you know, A or S if it were me. I love music. I'm glad that you said that. I think the way that music works on your brain is just, it does amazing things. You know, I don't know what music performance majors do if they don't become musicians. But music theory, like, any appreciation of it, like, I'm willing to put it high.

42:41I was going to say A, but if you're feeling S, I have no objection. Sure. Let's put it at S. All right. Neuroscience. Okay. My immediate instinct is D because of just the neuroscience that I've come across. And also the way that neuroscience has infected certain other areas, like, say, you know, meditation or ethics or, you know, in ways that it is not only unhelpful but positively misleading and distorting, but usually unhelpful.

43:16So I would admit that there might be a side of neuroscience that, and maybe this is even predominant in neuroscience that isn't like that. And it's just unfortunate that the neuroscience I've been exposed to is of the charlatan variety. But, yeah, I'm kind of interested to know what you would think about this. Yeah. This is an interesting one. So I know a lot of neuroscientists, and what I was going to say to sort of defend it is that, like, all of the things that we usually have, I mean, it's almost, like, the biggest historical shitting on that we do.

43:48Yeah. But it's usually cognitive neuroscience. That's right. It's usually, like, trying to understand the mind by understanding the brain. And almost every neuroscientist that I know is on our side about that stuff. Right. That doesn't surprise me. I think you might have even said that. Yeah. And so, like, I have, you know, people who are just interested in understanding how certain brain networks regulate circadian rhythms in hamsters. Right. Like, they're just interested in that shit. And it's interesting, you know? So I feel like it would belong, for me, with engineering and computer science at the B.

44:20I mean, like, engineering does stuff. It's not clear to me. Like, it might be interesting, neuroscience. But, like, to me, it belongs more in the C category. But if you want to put it in B, that's fine. I'm okay with it. Yeah. It does do stuff. I don't know. I think it's a notch above journalism, history, gender, sexuality, studies, which are classics in creative literature. Art history? Well, art history, we might have to move up. Yeah.

44:50All right. All right. Well, you give it to me. I'll give it to you. But now I feel like my debts are paid. All right. Philosophy. You know, it's funny. I haven't even thought about what to say about this. You know what I'll say? I think it's great to be a philosophy major. For all my shitting on philosophy, I find philosophy majors to be among the, you know, brightest and most interesting and interested students that we have. And so I would put it high. It's an S tier major for me.

45:21Oh, great. Yeah. I think being a philosophy major is one of the best majors you can be just in what it does for critical thinking, you know, like independent of the content that you might study, just what it gives your mind, the way that it feeds your mind and the options that you have for what to study. And like you said, like I think, you know, maybe it's a selection effect, but I do think that philosophy majors are the brightest. And I always want to remind myself, like philosophy PhD, just like English PhD, is a different question. Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of philosophy courses don't get into some of the, you know, problems with philosophy that a PhD program might.

45:57And so my only hesitation about putting in an S rather than A is there is a kind of standard philosophy program where, yeah, you do some good stuff, but you get bogged down in like kind of early modern period and maybe some of the 20th century analytics stuff. So I think it's an S tier major, but choose your classes wisely, I would say. Yeah. So S? S. Physics. Again, one of these, I like, it's very rare you come across a physics major, or at least that I do.

46:31So I really don't, I have very little idea what goes on in those programs. Yeah. I don't know physics majors either. We have a very good physics program here at Cornell, but most of the physics teaching is done to cover medical students, like pre-med. Do you know physics professors? As acquaintances, not just people I talk to. I love physics. Like I would rank a physics PhD very highly. A physics major, I don't know. Like I'd put it at a B.

47:01Yeah. It could be better, it could be worse. I don't know. Yeah. Because I have no idea. That's, yeah. Poly sci, political science. Again, my first instinct is D. Like economics, it's completely invaded by two things that I hate, but primarily by the, you know, like excessive quantification. And like political science departments, for people who aren't familiar, are usually divided into quant people, people who are just purely running studies to try to figure out what people's political biases are, political orientation or judgments are, and all of that.

47:38And a lot of that stuff is just elaborate statistical models that amount to nothing in like the real world, but is just how they do it. And then there are political theorists who actually are super interesting often. Sometimes they can be kind of evil, but the stuff that they do is more like philosophy and often like the best political theorists are some of the most fascinating people in the world to read. But the percentage of professors who are political theorists rather than quant people has dramatically shrunken.

48:13And this is something that poly sci students complain to me about all the time. It's just like we can't take a course in political theory because there aren't any more courses like that. So, well, I think it could be a good major, although it does attract maybe people who are likely going to damage this country in ways that we can't even imagine right now. I still think because of the quant stuff that to me would put it as a really bad social science D, but I don't know if you have a disagreement with that.

48:45No, I'm not. Well, I'm decently versed in it, and I just don't like any of it. I guess that makes sense, right? Of course. Yeah, not even the political philosophy within philosophy do I really care for. So, my gut is a D. All right. That's fine with me. But know that there are – if you're heavy in political theory, again, they might be evil, but it's certain to be interesting.

49:10Psychology.

49:13You know what's funny? We have so many psych majors. Like, it's such a big – it's by far in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. It, like, swamps the other majors. And, you know, like I don't want to get too bogged down in this. I'm kind of willing to defer to you on this. Well, thank you. I obviously think that it's a worthwhile major, again, separating it from PhD. It is, though, to me, the biggest value comes from its flexibility.

49:45Like, it's kind of – honestly, kind of neutral. I mean, I do think you get good training in stats and in sort of understanding, you know, in metascience maybe even nowadays. So, it's good to understand. Obviously, I teach intro psych. I think there's a lot of interesting stuff to be learned. And so, I think that as a psych major, you can do – like, I think it's actually a good pre-med major, you know, to not be just sticking to bio or chem or whatever. But I'm under no illusion that it's, like, a great major. Because I'm a psychologist, I want to put it as A or B and not C or D.

50:18Honestly, you get to decide. You're very kind. Let's put a psych major at a B just because of the range of possible – like, so that's the lower end for me. Yeah. You could have a terrible psych major and an amazing psych major. Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably one where the department – like, it depends a lot on the department. Cornell, S tier, just so you know. Okay. Religious studies. It's – again, not one I know a super – I don't know a lot about.

50:49But one that I imagine would be pretty interesting if you had interest in the questions that they cover. So, like, I think for me, I wouldn't have – certainly not at the time – had much interest in majoring in it. But there's a lot of religious studies scholars that have done very interesting work. We've just been talking about one for the last two episodes, right? So, yeah, I would put this, you know, in the A or B category. Yeah. I – like, I'm a huge fan of religious scholarship.

51:22I think that it is so central to understanding humanity in the world. I don't know a whole lot about what goes on in the major. So, you know, I can't speak too well to it. But I got to say, if my kid was like, I want to be a religious studies major, I'd be happy. So, A? I'd put it as an A, yeah. Sociology. Another one that's – like, I feel like it's – like, the best sociologists are, like, the most interesting things that I have ever read. You know, like – and then, from what I understand, there's a lot of crap.

51:53Just, like, absolute garbage. It is like poli-sci in this way. But they're not evil, the sociologists, like, some of the good. Yeah. I didn't even know that that was a thing that people would think of political science. So – but I only mean in the sense that, like, you have the most inane quant people. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and you have people who were, like, into Durkheim, which I love, right? So, I'd put this at a C. Okay. I mean, I feel like that's a little tough for it, but I guess I don't know the – how most sociology departments are run.

52:29I didn't know that it was as infected with inane quant stuff as political science. You know, like, what do I know? Like, that's my – like, a lot of people who do sociology do that kind of quant stuff, but I don't know what – like, how much it's been taken over. Or – I'd put it – I'm happy to put it as a B as well. When I was researching the honor book, like, I would say if I – the field that I read most of all the stuff that I read, and it was so much, I would say it was sociology was number one. Let's put it at B. Yeah.

53:00Yeah. Yeah. All right. Last one, statistics. I just – like, I do feel like they've ruined and impoverished the world, but I don't know if it's their fault in particular. And, like, you know, maybe you would say, well, if people get better at it, then that's exactly what we need. But it doesn't seem like there's – coming from statistics people and, you know, reading about statistics programs, it doesn't seem like they're taking a step-back critical approach to what they're doing.

53:33Rather, they're just teaching the methods that have become part of their normal science. So, I would put this very low, but I'm willing to hear your rebuttal. Okay. Yeah. Here's my mild pitch for them. The people who study statistics are, like, in abject horror at the way people like psychologists use statistics. So – That's true. They're math nerds. Yeah. They really are just math nerds. Like, they are very aware of all of the assumptions that are required to make any claim. I think they're hesitant to make claims that other social sciences that use statistics do.

54:07So, I think that if you were interested in a field that used statistics, like psychology or sociology, and you were a stats major, you would be a much better psychologist or sociologist. That said, I also find it navel-gazing, like, just be a math major is how I feel. So, if you had D, I might push it to a C. That's fine. But – Assuming, like, there's some good people there. Yeah. The other thing, you know, like, I didn't say this about economics and political science, but, like, they have a pretense to being sciences that I think is completely unearned.

54:45And, you know, like, their predictive power and their way of explaining things I think has a terrible track record. But I think statistics at least is about statistics in a way that – So, I think it should be higher than those two. And, you know, you got to know how to make the spread for, like, betting. Yeah, right. Like, just for being a sports bettor, I think it would be hugely important. So, okay. Happy with the DFC. Okay. All right. So, here's what we have. This is the time where we can move anything around. At the S tier, cream of the crop, English, film and media, mathematics, music, philosophy.

55:22So, what we're saying is if you're any one of these, you're golden. You're like a good human being. You're a good human. You're going to be successful and well-liked and popular and live a good and fulfilling life. Lots of sex and stuff. So much sex. Just be swimming in it. A tier. Anthropology, biology, religious studies. It's kind of a funny A tier that we have. I agree. And I won't – like, I don't think anyone would have predicted us. Should that be in the A tier anthropology? Yeah, you know, because my daughter's in anthropology.

55:53Oh, right, right, right. I actually think that, like, the best, like, the Joe Henrich-style anthropology is some of the most interesting stuff I would ever want to expose me. Yeah. Yeah, actually, I'm very happy with it. If anything, it could be argued that it could bump up to S tier. But, yeah. Yeah. It could be. Biology, religious studies. I like religious studies in A. The only thing about the A category, I think, is that maybe we should have more in the A category, but maybe not. Let's look at B. Yeah. B is Asian-slash-Latin-American-slash-African studies. Not A.

56:24Computer science. No. Engineering. Yeah. I can't – my heart is not – No, because there's too many engineers that hate that they're doing it, but they have to do it because of their parents.

56:34Neuroscience, physics, psychology, and sociology. I don't think any of those should be moved up. If I was going to move any of them up, it would be sociology, but I think that's wrong. I think I'm just wrong about that. Okay, C tier, art history, classics, comparative literature, gender and sexuality studies, history, journalism, and statistics. I'd be more willing to move art history to an A tier than anybody in the B tier. Than anybody in the B tier, which means maybe we're wrong.

57:04Maybe we should put art history and classics at least in the B tier. In the B, yeah. Journalism, statistics, history does seem right to me. Yeah, those are good C tiers things. Yeah. Sorry, gender and sexuality studies. I have to do this by law.

57:21I know. I love some of my best friends are gender and sexuality. Chemistry, economics, and political science, the lowest. I mean, I'm very happy with economics and political science, although, like I said, there can be some good sides. But no, it's a D. I wish there was a lower category for that. Chemistry, I'm also happy just because it just seems deadly dull. Chemistry is the most vibey of my judgments, and I'm happy with it.