There Are Four Lights

I’m back in northern Ontario in my little hometown, Kirkland Lake. I was in Montreal over the weekend as a guest at an anime convention called Otakuthon. I was a guest at the first Otakuthon, five years ago, when it was much smaller. This year’s event was fantastic and took place at the lovely Palais des Congress de Montreal. My first panel took place Friday evening which was my presentation “Skepticism Through Manga”. The talk went well, despite some technical difficulties; unfortunately I made the mistake of trusting my little HP notebook running Vista (why would I do that?!) as if it runs like my very trustworthy Alienware Area 51.

Quinton and I spent most of our time between panels at my guest table in the exhibitor hall, selling copies of my books and his 8×10 headshots. His first autograph session took place on Saturday and, unfortunately, had to be cut off at the end of the hour. He had a great Q&A session later in the afternoon, which took place right before my next panel, “Manga Storytelling: Writing and Illustration”.

My original plans were to head back to LA after the convention and then fly into Atlanta for Dragon*Con a couple weeks later. Unfortunately, after my last visit in the US, I was denied entry across the border; I’ve spent a lot of time visiting the US over the past year and that combined with my status as a freelancer made it possible for the border officer to deny me entry as an alleged intending immigrant.

I assure you the experience in secondary inspection was quite horrible—-I was in the waiting room separated from Quinton for over 2 hours without any indication of why I was there and once I was actually spoken to by the officer it was very emotionally distressing. But, alas, there isn’t much that can be done—-border officers can deny entry to anyone at their own discretion. Since Canadians don’t need tourist visas, it seems it can be easy for things to get messy (since you don’t actually have a visa to overstay). So, for now, I’m advised to postpone another attempted crossing for at least 6 months.

This means that my scheduled guest appearance at Dragon*Con won’t be happening this year. I was really looking forward to attending and being part of the Skeptrack. On the upside, it might sound really badass if you’d like to call me banned in America!

Join me, this Friday, Aug. 13th at 9pm for my presentation, “Skepticism Through Manga”, at the Palais des Congress de Montreal during Otakuthon. I’ll be a guest at the anime convention, which takes place Aug.13th-15th. In addition to my skepticism talk, I’ll also be doing a panel called “Manga Storytelling: Writing and Illustration” on Saturday, for those interested in the process of creating manga.

For those interested in skepticism, I’m organizing a meetup after my panel, which runs 9pm-10pm on Friday night. The plan is to meet at the nearby Suite 701 Lounge. So come check out my talk and hang out for more discussion about science, skepticism, anime, manga and more!

Please RSVP for the meetup on the facebook event page or by emailing me at saramayhew@ztarr.net.

I’ll be signing copies of my first graphic novel, Secrets of Sorcerers, at my table throughout the weekend. I’ll also be at the autograph sessions for my lovely beau, Quinton Flynn. We’ll be selling his headshots and I’ll have my books handy as well!

Nokia Responsiveness video: As mentioned in the previous post, my Responsiveness Campaign video for Nokia has been posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YewnVH_JQEQ.

Skepchick, one of the top skeptic blogs, noticed and posted about it the video here.

Dr. Phil Plait, aka Bad Astronomer, posted about me as well on his blog over at Discover, Bad Astronomy.

Anime News Network picked up the press release from Skepticality about their interview with me on episode 127: mp3 download, itunes. You can also find info about it in Skeptic Mag’s eSkeptic for April 21st, 2010.

My first post as new contributor to the Canadian blog, Skeptic North, was posted: The (unofficial) Manga Guide to Woo Arguments.

Live Science and Newsarama also posted an article about me, written by Jeremy Hsu.

Last Wednesday, I spoke at the Center for Inquiry‘s monthly science cafe, Cafe Inquiry. The talk and Q&A afterwards has been uploaded to YouTube in six parts:

Part 1 is my introduction and my explanation of skepticism and why I think it’s important. I also touch on why new age magical thinking and spirituality can be so appealing and easier to promote. My goal is to use storytelling to show skeptical values as virtues.

Part 2 is an overview of manga and why I’ve chosen it as a medium to tell stories that promote skepticism. I also speak about some series that have inspired me in my approach to doing this—-which is also an excuse to talk about Masters of the Universe.

Part 3 is about my series I’m producing, Legend of the Ztarr, and how I hope it will convey messages about critical thinking and humanism.

The Q&A discussion that took place afterwards is also available:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Does God have a Future?
A Great Debate Filmed by ABC’s Nightline

Today, we attended a debate between Michael Shermer and Sam Harris vs. Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston. The debate was “Does God have a Future?” and will air on ABC Nightline on March 23rd. It was splendid  to see Shermer and Harris speak again, after each giving their own great talk, last month, at TED. Chopra was predictably absurd, dishing out his brand of woo juice cocktail—-new age pseudoscience post-modernism blended with faux quantum physics. Jean Houston, whom I’ve never heard of, was a complete embarrassment. I don’t recall anything relevant in her boring anecdotes.

I had a chance to ask a question, so I came up with one for Deepak. He had mentioned “deeper ways of knowing” and gave the impression that this was through intuition and repeatedly referred to “the subjective”. So I asked, “Without the objective scientifiic method, how can we distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true?” Deepak answered this by saying he would answer my question, but that he didn’t want to answer any more questions after that. He then proceeded to not answer my question by doing his little Chopra word dance of nothingness.

Now, I know correlation doesn’t always mean causation, but if you want to interpret Chopra’s actions as being totally scared off by my question of skeptical awesomeness, I have no problem with that whatsoever!

Skepticism Through Manga

The graphic novel market is dominated by sales of manga; the form of comic book made popular by its animated counterpart, anime. Canadian manga creator, Sara E. Mayhew, was featured by the country’s prestigious graphic arts magazine, Applied Arts, as “new talent commanding our attention”. And, indeed, that was what she received—the attention of TED, the annual idea conference of the world’s leading thinkers and doers, who chose Sara to become part of their new fellowship program and attend the TED conference as a 2009 TED Fellow.

Her “idea worth spreading”? Promoting skepticism and passing on her passion for science through storytelling. Manga is the platform she has chosen to tell her stories. In her talk, Skepticism Through Manga, you’ll be introduced to this powerful storytelling medium and to the worlds and characters she has created to inspire readers to embrace evidence-based thinking.

Yes, I’ll be speaking at the Center For Inquiry on March 31st at 8pm in Hollywood! This is CFI’s monthly science cafe, “Cafe Inquiry“. It’s a free event so come on by and hang out with other skeptics, humanists, and science lovers. I’ll be opening the evening with my talk and then a discussion follows.

FREE skeptics talk, available refreshments, open bookstore, AND a geekalicious Canadian mangaka? HOMGosh~tell everyone!

Attending TEDActive was an amazing experience. Just seeing the TED2010 simulcast alone is great—-12 sessions of TED talks in four days. Then there’s the swag; the TED gift bags and the surprise giveaway of Google Nexus One phones for the 1500 Long Beach attendees, 500 TEDActive attendees, and all the TED Associate members. One of the experiences I’m most grateful for in my TEDActive ’10 attendance was the opportunity to give a 3min TEDYou talk, Friday morning, to an audience of a few hundred of my fellow TEDActive members.

I was second to speak, which meant following Sebastian Wernicke‘s amazing talk on how to make an amazing TED talk. My 3mins was dedicated to speaking about why I think the world needs more skepticism and how I’d like to promote that idea through manga storytelling.

What I believe is an idea worth spreading can be summed up in one of my favourite Sagan quotes “For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring”. The theme of this year’s TED conference was “What the World Needs Now”. My pick for what the world needs is more skepticism, critical thinking, and science literacy.

If we want to distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true, we will learn to be good skeptics.

TED is a conference of the world’s leading thinkers and doers. What speaks to me the most about the TED speakers is not only that they are at the leading edge of their field, but that their work is driven by a passion to somehow make the world a better place. In my own work, I’m motivated to improve my writing and art from a technical perspective, but my major focus is often to establish what my own idea worth spreading is.

Manga is a hugely popular form of sequential art. Some of the things most appealing to me about it is the diverse readership (people of all ages read manga, including a high percentage of female readers) and the unconstrained storytelling—-you can tell all kinds of stories using manga. My goal in my work as a mangaka is to create stories that show the value in critical thinking and the dangers of mixing power and ignorance. I want to create characters that are good role models as skeptics—-overcoming problems using knowledge and evidence-based thinking.

Legend of the Ztarr is the story I’m writing with these ideas in mind. Currently, the first chapter is available online. My goal for 2010 is to get the series picked up my one of the major US manga publishers.

I had a great time getting my 3mins in front of the amazing TEDActive crowd. It isn’t often I get to talk to others about my work and my passion behind it. My fellow TED 2009 Fellowship member, Tino Chow, posted about my TEDYou talk on his blog, where he covered the TED simulcast.

©tinochow

The second day of TED started off with Session 4 “Reason”. In Palm Springs, some TEDActive folks wore PJs to the morning session. This session included Michael Specter and Sam Harris—-giving the audience a healthy dose of skepticism. Michael Specter talked about the dangers of anti-vaxxers and confirmed what Sheldon told Penny in an episode of The Big Bang Theory; vitamins and supplements are “expensive pee”. Sam Harris is always a dream to listen to. He speaks calmly, doesn’t mind pausing to form a thought and is always quite witty. He spoke about science and values and argued that we should use evidence-based thinking when it comes to morality and human suffering.

As the day continued, my photo documentation pretty much came to a stand still. But I recently came across my fellow TED’09 Fellow, Tino Chow‘s amazing blog. Go check out his great TED posts!

Tino Chow’s TEDActive Flickr set

TEDActive co-hosts Kelly and Rives. Session 1 “Mindshift” starts with Daniel Kahneman.

Jake Shimabukuro plays “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the ukulele. Michael Shermer talks about belief in the brain.

Session 2 “Discovery”. Lunch break at the beautiful Riviera Resort with picnic baskets for six and the gorgeous snow-peaked mountains always in the background.

Session 3 “Action” with Sheryl Crow. Jamie Oliver wins the TED Prize.

My TEDActive 2010 Flickr set

Last February, I was chosen to be a TED’09 Fellow and attended the TED conference in Long Beach, CA. It was a life-changing experience. This year, I’m headed to TEDActive, in Palm Springs, which is the simulcast of TED. For those of you who live in a cyber-cave, head over to TED.com already!

I did a talk, last year, on the TED Fellows stage, and this year I’ll be doing another little talk—-this time, during TEDActive‘s TEDYou session. I’ve recently put the finishing touches on my slides (example above). My talk will be about skepticism and manga!