Decoding the Gurus

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

With the Trump administration’s newest political persecution of Anthony Fauci and three years after our first lab-leak special, now seemed like a useful time to return to the topic. Fortunately, you do not have to rely on our knowledge of viruses, as we have somehow managed to convince the same three esteemed virologists, Eddie Holmes, Kristian Andersen and Michael Worobey, to come back for an update.
Mike, Kristian and Eddie return and offer us their read on where the scientific evidence on COVID’s origins stands in 2026. They take us through the main lines of evidence and the often overlooked role of the wildlife trade, explaining why the lab-leak story remains so appealing, and how their own assessments have shifted as more evidence has emerged. We also discuss the standard claim that the media suppressed the lab-leak narrative while noting that coverage across both alternative and mainstream outlets remains heavily skewed towards it (and almost entirely detached from the research literature).
Finally, we end on a characteristically positive note by discussing the Trump administration’s attacks on science and the ongoing campaigns against high-profile scientists and public health figures. Our guests describe their experience of committing the heinous offence of following the scientific evidence and arriving at conclusions that contradict the preferred views of polemical politicians and prominent media pundits.
In short, this episode is our modest attempt to drag the topic back towards the science, while also focusing on the price paid by the people who actually conduct the research and care about the evidence. We are not neutral when it comes to the ongoing attacks on science and scientists and do not pretend to be.
Links
Our guests: Michael Worobey, Kristian Andersen, and Eddie Holmes
Our previous interview with Worobey, Andersen and Holmes
Lab Leak Fever with Philipp Markolin
Our earlier interview with Stuart Neil on SARS-CoV-2
Sam Harris, Alina Chan and Matt Ridley: Did SARS-CoV-2 Escape from a Lab?
Bad Boy of Science: Is the COVID Lab Leak Hypothesis Dead?
Kristian Andersen on his early emails, released messages and changing assessment
Kristian Andersen’s congressional testimony and document collection
Kristian’s thread responding to the use of his Slack messages
Michael Worobey on why his assessment changed
WHO SAGO’s 2025 assessment of the origins evidence
The July 2026 Senate release of the Slack messages
Kevin Drum’s reading of the earlier Slack archive
The current White House lab-leak page
The July 2026 Fauci hearing
Naomi Oreskes on scientific integrity and “ethical pessimism”
Nature: Climate scientists report online attacks
Alwine et al. on the harms to scientists, research and pandemic preparedness

Relevant research papers and reviews
Andersen, K. G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W. I., Holmes, E. C., & Garry, R. F. (2020). The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine, 26(4), 450–452.
Crits-Christoph, A., Levy, J. I., Pekar, J. E., et al. (2024). Genetic tracing of market wildlife and viruses at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cell, 187(19), 5468–5482.
Holmes, E. C. (2024). The emergence and evolution of SARS-CoV-2. Annual Review of Virology, 11(1), 21–42.
Liu, W. J., Liu, P., Lei, W., et al. (2023). Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 at the Huanan Seafood Market. Nature, 631(8020), 402–408.
Pekar, J. E., Magee, A., Parker, E., et al. (2022). The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2. Science, 377(6609), 960–966.
Pekar, J. E., Moshiri, N., Lemey, P., et al. (2025). Recently reported SARS-CoV-2 genomes suggested to be intermediate between the two early main lineages are instead likely derived. Virus Evolution, 11(1).
Pekar, J. E., Lytras, S., Ghafari, M., et al. (2025). The recency and geographical origins of the bat viruses ancestral to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. Cell, 188(12), 3167–3183.
Temmam, S., Vongphayloth, K., Baquero, E., et al. (2022). Bat coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2 and infectious for human cells. Nature, 604

We endure the ravages of time to deliver you this exhausted Supplementary Material. Bowed but never broken, the decoders persist.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 2hr 20 mins)
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 53
00:23 Introduction: Matthew the Succulent's Post-Holiday Report
02:15 Pickle Ball Injuries & Bouldering Curses
07:40 They Won't Let You Talk about Middle-Aged Sports Injuries
08:37 New AI Models
09:31 Cory Doctorow, Trevor Noah, and Confirmation Bias
23:45 The Glorious Past and the Terrible Present
28:28 The Horror of Tinned Asparagus
30:26 The Collapse of Industries & Stores
36:16 Negativity Bias
37:11 AI Prompting 101
44:30 AI and Research Applications
50:28 Nigel Farage vs Count Binface
59:10 Nigel Farage Knighted on Russia Today
01:02:53 Hasan's Advice for Ukrainians
01:07:51 Russian Apologetics
01:13:32 Vlad Vexler and soft Anti-Vaxx rhetoric
01:19:35 Guru Red Flags
01:23:48 Bret Weinstein in 2020 on Vaccines
01:28:53 Gary vs Piers Morgan
01:30:58 Piers Morgan being a blustering idiot about Elon Musk
01:36:55 Gary's Pitch
01:41:55 Alternative Tax Proposals
01:46:18 Matt and Chris' Economics
01:47:22 Gary's Wealth
01:52:07 Piers the sleazy liar
01:55:25 Gary is the best inequality economist in the UK
01:57:08 Gary's Predictions
02:00:40 Gary is Very Tired
02:07:14 A message from anyone else to finish?
02:14:25 Final Takeaways
02:16:55 Matt attempts to wrangle another holiday
Links
The Verge: China delivers a one-two punch to America’s AI dominance
What Now? with Trevor Noah: Why Google, Apple & Big Tech Keep Making Everything Worse — Cory Doctorow and Trevor Noah
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of general psychology, 5(4), 323-370.
Count Binface on BBC Morning Live — full interview
Count Binface on Newsnight
Hasan offers Ukraine his advice to “give peace a try”
Report on polling from Ukraine in 2025 that does not show what Hasan claims
Report on more recent polling that still does not show what Hasan claims
Vlad Vexler tweets about vaccines
Bret’s Tweets in 2020 on Vaccines (and here)
Chris noting Bret’s anti-vaccine rhetoric in 2020 (see the comments under the tweet)
Kyiv International Institute of Sociology: Ukrainian views on exchanging Donbas for security guarantees
Decoding Academia 34: Matt and Chris’ Economics
Piers Morgan Uncensored: “I’m QUITTING!” Gary Stevenson vs Piers Morgan on Wealth, Economic Growth & Elon Musk

Two absolutely shattered academic heroes heroically drag themselves through yet another supplementary episode to bring you the important guru news in between their restorative breaks.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 1hr 32 mins)
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
00:00 Introduction
02:13 Eliot Paisley's Anatomy of an Optimiser
08:52 Eric Weinstein wants a University Position and a Stipend
16:09 The Failure of the Anti-Woke Quasi Universities
19:19 Gary is Knackered Again
20:45 Gary is the best inequality economist in the world
24:36 How do I make a Documentary?
33:04 The End of the Year Approaches
37:44 Public Accountability
40:13 The Neurodivergent Trump Card
40:59 A clarification on bailiwicks
42:43 Tucker Carlson & Chris Cuomo discuss Russian Apologetics
48:53 Ukraine is selling weapons to Mexican Cartels
54:54 Civility Porn Judo
56:09 When Hasan met Prof. Jiang
01:01:37 Conspiracy Theory Buffet
01:07:24 Looking Good by Comparison
01:11:21 Comparing Epstein Conspiracies
01:24:03 Agreeable Conspiracism
01:27:13 Outro and Piers Morgan Invite
Links
Eric Weinstein appeals to billionaires on Twitter
Elliot Paisley: Chris Williamson Is A Slave
Gary’s Economics: My Documentary is Coming Out THIS WEEK!! – why you should watch it
The Times: Gary Stevenson: I want a wealth tax on the super-rich — like me
News Nation: Tucker & Chris Cuomo: The FULL Conversation
Hasan Debates Professor Jiang On His Wild Predictions | HasanAbi Archive