There Are Four Lights

Don’t criticize The Oprah Winfrey of Skepticism™.

Many Skepchicks and self-described feminists have bullied me. There are many other women who’ve experienced similar hatred from women like Watson, Hensley, Roth. The difference is that I don’t presume to speak for all women in secularism and skepticism. They do. They speak of “women in skepticism experience _____” and “women atheists” think X.

They dismiss the opinions of women who don’t agree with some of the things they do. These feminist leaders aren’t listening.

Rebecca’s brand was built on the idea that women in skepticism are chicks. She made a mess with bringing sexiness and partying into the idea of promoting women in skepticism, however well intentioned. It’s a mess that she isn’t doing a good job of cleaning up.

I’m sure in the early days of podcasting, a snarky skeptic chick was novel. It’s old now and the movement has grown; there are plenty of women who do real-world education, research, writing, outreach, organising and popularising who deserve the resources, attention, and speaking positions that are squandered by Waton to promote her stale self-serving pseudo empire.

This is a comment I left on Ron Lindsay’s post Watson’s World and Two Models of Communication

Atheism is a religion in the same way that not-stamp-collecting is a hobby. In a similar way, skepticism is an ideology about not using ideology. Not when we want to know the difference between what is true and what we simply want to be true. Mysticism is about answers; skepticism is about questions. It’s not so much criticizing your conclusions, as it is the methods you used to get to them. If you evaluate a claim using methods that decrease bias and account for error, you are being skeptical.

So, when I hear people who self-identify as skeptics say that “______” needs to be applied to skepticism, I wonder how they can so fundamentally misunderstand the point of skepticism (insert your worldview in the blank). The absolutely most important thing about skepticism is that it is doesn’t investigate through ideology. Claims about reality should be tested free from our personal views because reality has demonstrated over and over again that it doesn’t necessarily align with those worldviews.

But the world we live in is so devastatingly lacking in critical thinking skills that it’s necessary to band together and promote skepticism through local groups and organizations…a movement. What people like PZ Myers, who claimed to “divorce” himself from skepticism because he feels it is anti-atheist, don’t seem to realize is that there are going to be people in the skeptic movement with different philosophical, social, and political views from your own because skepticism is for everyone.

“Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.” —Peter Ustinov

Skeptics are united, not by belief, not by denial, but by doubt. We promote the fact that it’s even easier to be deceived by ourselves than by others. The hard part is actually applying this to ourselves (realizing we may indeed be deceiving ourselves, instead of simply noticing self-deception in others). But we all have different worldviews and sometimes these views make us purport ideas which are testable claims, and sometimes they are value judgments. The challenge for those of us who want to promote science-based thinking is to realize that the price we pay for having skepticism be for everyone is that we must work together, even with those we may disagree with.

What’s really going on when you want ideas from your social or political views added (+) to skepticism is that you want those ideas protected from skepticism. But the point and greatest strength of skepticism is that it is critical of all -isms. All of them. When you start wanting your ideas protected from criticism, that’s when you stop being a skeptic.

I’ve been working as an illustrator for almost 10 years, and I can’t count the number of times people admit to not being able to draw, yet seem to wish they could. Perhaps, as most claim, I don’t understand why people who want to draw just don’t do it because it comes so naturally to me. But, I’ve come to the opinion that even if you think you can’t draw, you should.

I love getting drawings from others. My bedroom wall has my favourite manga drawings from my summer students who take my “Learn to Draw Manga” JSANO School of the Arts program. And don’t we all love getting drawings from those we love, too, even if it’s not “good”? I try to persuade my family, my friends, and my boyfriend to draw something for me, every once in a while. The reason? I love looking at something someone has created and seeing a glimpse of their thinking. It’s really interesting to me to see how people are solving creative problems and how their using their imagination.

I encourage you to draw. Don’t be scared. Don’t worry about making “mistakes” or what it ends up looking like. Just doodle away! Keep making more and more. Draw anything!

Do it.

And send it to me!

By anonymous Mayhew family member

PZ Myers, a biologist who used to blog about science, announced he is “officially” divorcing himself from the skeptic movement. This is good news for people who want to promote scientific skepticism, because Myers doesn’t promote skepticism anyway.

The reaction he expected at this announcement:

The reactions he gets:

Myers, like many other FreethoughtBlog bloggers, has been spending most of his time fueling internet drama that most people don’t know/care about. I’m glad he’s making it clear that what he’s doing isn’t skepticism.

Richard Feynman was born May 11, 1918. This months’ manga donation doodle celebrates this Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist! As always, you can get your hand drawn and signed manga doodle simply by making a donation of any amount.

Buying these science themed drawings not only celebrates a love of great thinkers, but also helps fund an indie artist like myself to keep on creating. Your support means a lot to me.

Previous Months: Darwin Day, Einstein Day, Da Vinci Day

The Rising Star grant is my new fundraiser to send young talent (between ages 18-30) to the Amazing Meeting 2013. So far, it will be sending 6 rising stars to the event this July, in Las Vegas. Keep donating!

Jessica Castillo

Currently studying philosophy at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, Jessica plans on pursuing a career in education. She’s 29, has two lovely daughters, and many different passions in life all stemming from overwhelming curiosity and a genuine love of learning. Ultimately, she’s eager to become an advocate for skepticism and education.

Ana Ruiz 

Ana was born in Miami Florida, with parents from Cuba. She grew up as a Catholic Christian, but converted to evangelical Christianity in her early teens. As a devoted evangelical Christian, she became disillusioned after attending University. She moved to New York when she was 12 and has lived there ever since, currently working as a freelance web developer, with the hope to go back to school after her daughter gets a bit older.

Sasha Halasz 

Sasha graduated in May from Moravian College with honors in Neuroscience. She was very involved as an undergraduate in many clubs and organizations including serving as president of her campus neuroscience club and volunteering for local community partners. She has been very engaged in research throughout her undergraduate career and recently completed a yearlong study of a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease for her senior thesis. She is a strong advocate for science research and outreach and has traveled to the past two Society for Neuroscience national conferences as well as Capitol Hill Day in D.C to promote a scientific perspective. She has a particular interest in health and medicine and will be attending medical school this August.

Kyle Sanders

Kyle is a C-130 Air Force pilot currently stationed in Little Rock, Arkansas, graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2008, and has since been engaged in local groups at each of his duty locations. With a passion for science communication, he is also an artist creating a new a comic strip, “Carbon Dating”, for web and print about science and relationships, written specifically for the skeptic audience.

Brandie Hesse

Brandie is a fourth year history student and the University of Calgary and upcoming president of the University of Calgary Freethinkers Club, which produces a club podcast and organizes local events. She intends to complete a double major in philosophy, obtain a PhD, and become a research professor and author of books on the history of religion. Her passion for activism focuses on humanism and the elimination of discrimination, and is interested in future involvement in politics to promote these goals.

Trent Brusky

Trent is a musician and the creator of Dropfox, a project dedicated to providing music to secular, freethought, science, and skeptic podcasts, having produced tracks for Oddments, Dogma Debate, Meet the Skeptics, The Skeptic Zone, and Skepticality. He is also an engineer technology student and State College of Florida and hopes to work in alternative energies in the future.

Leonardo Da Vinci was  born April 15th, 1452. Celebrate this Renaissance man’s love of art and science with a hand drawn manga doodle—yours with any donation amount! Your support means a lot to indie artists like me. Thanks so much.

Make a donation and you’ll receive a hand inked manga drawing of cute little Leo and his smirking gal.

Some cute picks with mints and pinks, from my Pinterest!

Follow my Pinterest, here!

There was a recent edit war on my wiki page about the use of the term “manga” to describe my work. The wikipedia entry for manga describes it as a Japanese specific term for comics made in Japan, by Japanese creators or publishers. As a Canadian, there was a debate over whether I could truly call my work manga and refer to myself as a mangaka. While it is true that manga is simply the Japanese word for comics, I hope to explain why I find it useful and more accurate to label my series as manga.

In North America, there are differences between comic book readers and manga readers, even though there can be some crossover in the market. Typically, when you talk of comics in North America, people tend to think of Marvel/DC type books. The majority of comic readers are adult males and the most common genres are super hero, sci-fi, fantasy, horror mixes. However, with manga sales in North America, the majority of readers are young women and girls, and includes drama and romance genre series. Take a look in a book store and you’ll likely find different sections for comics and manga, with different kinds of demographics.

As a type of comic, what manga readers are looking for can be on a spectrum, rather than cut-and-dry criteria. The spectrum of art styles that can be included in manga is only one difference—manga tends to rely more on symbolism than the more literal style of American comics, and relies more on emotion and imagery than dialogue or narration. The business models differ as well, with comic series more commonly being owned by the publisher, while manga series are typically owned by the creator (who licenses the publishing rights).

With these differences, if I want to reach the readership most likely to enjoy my work, the easiest way to do that is by calling it manga, and having it in the manga section. My nationality is irrelevant when going through the selling points of my work. “Manga” is quite practical as a marketing label in North America. Only referring to my work as comics simply because of my nationality or what country the work was created in does nothing to help sell it in North America where there are real difference between selling comic books and manga.

I feel like any other term—OEL (Original English Language) manga, Global manga, and the like—only serves as a warning against buying it (for a silly and pretty much prejudice reason), and why would any artist or publisher want that for their product?

I know that there can be books made in a manga-mimicry fashion just to “cash-in” on the popularity of manga, or plenty of fan-created works that are derivative and fueled by pure fandom, but I don’t think these are strong arguments against using “manga” to describe them. You can quickly fall into the No True Scotsman argument. Besides, Japan has plenty of crappy manga, it just doesn’t tend to get licensed here in North America.

The reality is, calling my work manga is the most likely way to get my books into the hands of readers who will like them, no matter what the purists have to say.

note: My series Secrets of Sorcerers was created reading left-to-right, like Western books,  but I choose to create my latest series, Legend of the Ztarr, in Japanese right-to-left because it became industry standard and I wanted to avoid any technical problems that might arise (like having the books in print on shelves with other manga, conforming to manga reader apps, or including chapters in anthology style magazines that would run right-to-left).

Albert Einstein, born March 14, 1879

After a very successful Darwin Day, and by popular demand, I present Einstein Day Drawings! You get a hand drawn manga ink of Albert Einstein when you make a donation of any amount. March celebrates Einstein’s birthday on the 14th. Support indie art and celebrate science at the same time!