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!

Share this post:

Pink Leopard chiffon top + camisol

YesStyle is my favourite online store. I really should remove the oh-so-easy to click bookmark button from my browser. I started visiting the site as a fashion resource for illustrating clothing for my manga characters. Now, I dispose my income there…

I’m not a very big girl, by any means, but the petite sizes of this Hong Kong based store—-with Japanese, Korean, and Chinese brands—-make me feel really huge sometimes! This pink leopard print top fits fine, but you can still notice how loose it hangs on the model, compared to me. I’m also weasing flower barrettes from YesStyle (now unlisted) and a moon crescent pendant (out of stock). The blouse also came with a white lace camisol.

Below, is a yellow empire blouse from a South Korean brand called dodostyle. This picture of me was taken at a bistro called Soleil on the west side of Los Angeles. It was a really nice place, but I think that it’s adorable that french bistros in LA will have poutine on the menu as if it is as ‘fancy pants’ as other french dishes. Where I’m from, in northern Ontario, poutine is something you find at a greasy burgers ‘n fries joint, in a school cafeteria, or at a chip-truck. You typically won’t find it on a ‘classy’ menu. I could be wrong. Heck, I didn’t know there was a Poutinebot on twitter.

Crochet-detail Empire blouse

Share this post:

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

Share this post:

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

Share this post:

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

Share this post:

Alternative medicine is a major public health risk. Untested and discredited treatments are promoted for just about any health problem you can imagine. Those who are most desperate are often the target of alt-med treatments, swooping in to provide an “alternative” or “complimentary” cure when real medicine, unfortunately, has been unsuccessful. There is one area, however, where the quack alternative treatment has established itself as the standard treatment: 12-step programs in the area of addiction.

Alcoholics Anonymous is the original 12 Step program, which has spawn a whole industry of recovery programs that basically copy-paste the 12 steps to deal with any addictive behaviour—-Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Workaholics Anonymous, Clutterers Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Online Gamers Anonymous, Smokers Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous—-the list goes on. There are also groups like Al-anon, where you don’t have to be an addict yourself, only someone being affected by one.

AA has been extremely successful in promoting itself as the most successful treatment for alcoholism. It markets itself as a non-denominational support group for alcohol abuse. Once inside the walls of its meetings, however, it’s clear that members are to understand that AA is the only treatment for alcoholism. It isn’t officially stated (in fact, the opening remarks are careful to say that the program is “widely regarded” as the most successful treatment), but if it isn’t implied in nearly every member’s ’share’—-their anecdotal evidence that life without AA means relapse and death—-it is certainly the message of the AA bible “Alcoholics Anonymous”, referred to as The Big Book.

What is often said in the meetings and what is written in The Big Book contradict the public image of AA as a support group for those who wish to quite drinking. What the general public doesn’t know about AA is that it is a religious group which teaches its members that alcoholism is a spiritual disease with no cure and only by giving yourself up to God can one stay sober.

“Unless each A.A. member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant.”
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, William G. Wilson, page 174.

Though it is argued that the Twelve Steps refer to a “power great than ourselves” and that ‘power’ can be anything you want, it is clear in the reading material that you are supposed to want that power to be God.

We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God.
The Big Book, 3rd & 4th Editions, William G. Wilson, Page 46.

It is also clear that the goal of AA isn’t to stop abusing alcohol, but to serve God.

“At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order. But this is not an end in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God…”
The Big Book, William G. Wilson, page 77.

(My bold)

The magical thinking in AA is no different than that found in other alternative medicine. Like any typical spiritual healer, who will tell you that ‘negative energy’ is the cause of your cancer, AA attributes alcoholism to sins and moral shortcomings instead of alcohol consumption. In AA, being sober doesn’t mean simply not drinking. You are only sober if you have turned your will over to a power greater than yourself. Those who haven’t done this are labelled “dry drunks”. When their quack treatments don’t work, alternative medicine proponents will blame the patient. In the world of AA, if you overcome your addiction without the program (especially if you learn to drink in moderation), you were never an alcoholic in the first place.

But the most important feature of AA, true of any other alternative medicine, is that it doesn’t work. Those of us who advocate science based medicine make evidence of efficacy a requirement. The 12 Step industry deserves the same skepticism that we would apply to any other faith healing group…and people suffering from substance abuse and addiction deserve more than the “support” of a spiritual cult.

Share this post:

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!

Share this post:

Dear parents/facebook users,

I know you are proud of your babies, but please stop using them as your Facebook profile picture. Babies are cute, especial your baby; I have nothing against babies. However, your baby is not a practical profile picture for your Facebook account. Please put pictures of your babies in photo albums, post them on your wall, or include yourself with your baby in the profile picture. My friend suggestion panel contains names of facebook users who appear to be babies.

I do not personally know any babies.

Share this post:

Not many people know this, but our cats, Mya and Twinkle, are certified new age gurus (as you can see in the photo, Mya is clearly in her psychic trance). Like all successful charlatans new age gurus, they now have their own website!

You are now just a click away from their on-demand new age wisdom service! Of course, some close-minded skeptics accuse them of being nothing more than simple random woo generators.

Share this post: