There Are Four Lights

No, I can’t prove that you won’t spontaneously turn into a toaster. But, in the case of some people, I can certainly wish you will. I’m often disappointed when I mingle within the art world and speak with fellow artists about anything other than art, specifically, science. All that tends to be said is a bunch of wishy-washy gobbly-goop. As a mangaka, I love telling stories, especially the kind of stories that involve magic, spirits, and strange sci-fi phenomena. However, that’s where it ends, for me. I don’t pretend to believe that any of the mysticism, either in my own work or in other books, manga, movies I love, can translate literally into the world we live in. There’s no reason to believe in the existence of spirits, ghosts, demons, deities…or…um, horcruxes. People don’t have psychic powers, they can’t perform divination, and no one can come back in blue-Jedi form (unfortunately). All that fun stuff can only happen within the imaginary made-up worlds in storytelling. But, when confronted with claims saying otherwise, what is a little, non-sciencey, mangaka to do? Eh? Whatcha gonna do, Ms. Grumpy-pants aka closed minded, cold, heartless, evidence-whore?!

The first problem to address is the misunderstanding over what science is. Like  Michael Shermer says, science is a verb. Science isn’t old men in white lab coats; its critical thinking. If there’s one anti-science argument I hear over and over again it’s that science is biased. Well, gosh darn it, this breaks my little grumpy-pants heart! I think the mistake being made here is the difference between a scientist being biased and science being biased. “Of course, you’re gonna say my homeopathic quantum juice doesn’t work, Mr. Fancypants…you’re a ‘scientist’!” (And we all know that negative energy vibrations from Fancypants scientists interfere with how woo-juice works).

Scientists can be prone to bias, like anyone else, but the scientific method itself is objective. There’s no better methodology one can use to fight against our own personal beliefs, observer bias, and confirmation bias. In the world of art and storytelling, things are based on interpretation and your work is perceived differently by different people because of their own experiences, cultural beliefs, and personal tastes. Two people can look at the same piece of art and hold two completely different and valid opinions about it. So, it makes sense that someone used to functioning in the art world might apply this type of thinking to science as well. However, science is not relative. One of the purposes of the scientific method is to produce results which can be repeated by anyone, anywhere, no matter what their biases may be. Again, I’m just a mangaka, but if I understand correctly, even with Einstein’s relativity-where observers can hold different but equally valid claims based on their frame of reference-the theory itself is not relative.

Perhaps, it would be better if I used the words critical thinking or rational thought instead of ‘science’. I doubt as many people would argue against being rational and I can’t think of many scenarios where one would stop and say “You know, I don’t think this is a claim that you should apply science critical thinking to”. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being exposed to skepticism that I find most valuable is the ability to realize when I’m believing something simply because I want it to be true. Ann Druyan writes, in the introduction to Carl Sagan’s The Varieties of Scientific Experience:

“…science opens the way to levels of consciousness that are otherwise inaccessible to us; that, contrary to our cultural bias, the only gratification that science denies to us is deception.“

The story of two Gorgia men who claimed to have captured Bigfoot is a little old now, but I couldn’t keep the geekdom inside me any longer. Besides, such master pieces should not be kept from the world~! My original idea was not in comic form–I would love to see a wookie costume frozen in a block of ice in a fake press conference video posted on YouTube to spoof the Bigfoot hoax. But, I’m a mangaka so all I’m (barely) useful for is drawing silly pictures.

One of my favourite podcasts, SETI’s “Are We Alone”, had an episode about the hoax, Skeptical Sunday: Bigfoot Press Conference. What I like most is how the hosts, Seth Shostak and Molly Bentley, explain a lot about what good evidence is and why what was presented at the press conference is considered poor evidence. They also did an excellent job of pointing out how the man speaking to the press was setting up the story so that what would be presented might seem more credible.

Personally, I don’t think it’s absolutely absurd to think there might be a creature lurking in the forests of North America that we don’t know about. However, I think it’s most likely that there’s plenty of alternate explanations for these sort of sightings which are far more probable. I do have a beef with cryptozoology, though. This term for the study of hidden animals triggers my woo-alarm. I can’t see how one can investigate a claim, like a Sasquatch sighting, and be unbiased if they are calling themselves a cryptozoologist. You are naming yourself after your desired result: hidden animals. Don’t regular, plain-old, everyday zoologists find new species? I betcha they do…probably by coming across evidence that suggests there might be a new creature. But, since they aren’t exclusively in the search for undiscovered creatures, they should be less likely to overlook an alternate explanation for what they’ve found.

As for myself, I’m just a mangaka and part-time cryptoboyfriendologist.