Supplementary Material 55: Nature Debates, Murder Drone Conspiracies, and Podcast Vibes

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.

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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