The Bad Show

2026-05-08 · 67 min · episode 692 · 12 entities

episode page audio

Asserted relationships

→ discusses Society & Culture concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Society & Culture
→ discusses Science concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Science
→ discusses History concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: History
→ discusses Documentary concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Documentary
→ hosted by WNYC Studios company

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evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: WNYC Studios
→ discusses Natural Sciences concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Natural Sciences

Entities found in this episode

concepts 10

mentioned Society & Culture concept

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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Society & Culture
mentioned Science concept

0.50

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Science
mentioned History concept

0.50

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: History
mentioned Documentary concept

0.50

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Documentary
mentioned Natural Sciences concept

0.50

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Natural Sciences
discusses Society & Culture concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Society & Culture
discusses Science concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Science
discusses History concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: History
discusses Documentary concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Documentary
discusses Natural Sciences concept

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Natural Sciences

companys 2

mentioned WNYC Studios company

0.70

evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: WNYC Studios
hosted by WNYC Studios company

0.40

evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: WNYC Studios

Episode description as stored

With all of the black-and-white moralizing in our world today, we decided to bring back an old show from 2011 about the little bit of bad that's in all of us...and the little bit of really, really bad that's in some of us. Cruelty, violence, badness... in this episode we begin with a chilling statistic: 91% of men, and 84% of women, have fantasized about killing someone. We take a look at one particular fantasy lurking behind these numbers, and wonder what this shadow world might tell us about ourselves and our neighbors. Then, we reconsider what Stanley Milgram's famous experiment really revealed about human nature (it's both better and worse than we thought). Next, we meet a man who scrambles our notions of good and evil: chemist Fritz Haber, who won a Nobel Prize in 1918...around the same time officials in the US were calling him a war criminal. And we end with the story of a man who chased one of the most prolific serial killers in US history, then got a chance to ask him the question that had haunted him for years: why? EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Pat Walters and Latif Nasser Produced by - Pat Watlers with help from - Carter Hodge. Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram , Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org . Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.