 Moving on. Our next presenter is Sarah Mayhew. She's a writer and illustrator, a Ted Talk Fellowship program member. Her series The Legend of Star was featured in Skeptical Inquirer. She might have some time for some questions at the end. Of course, her talk is called Skepticism for Everyone, Popularizing Skepticism with Entertainment. She's of course a manga illustrator, so her haiku is colors, flash, bursts, flight, staring wide-eyed at manga. Why night? Get it? Please welcome Sarah Mayhew. I'm so happy to be back here at TAM. Here where we celebrate each year, science, reason, critical thinking, and of course the promotion of skepticism. I'm interested in popularizing skepticism through entertainment, through books, film, TV, with role models that show that skepticism is for everyone. And of course we're here this year under the theme Fighting the Fakers. But who are these fakers? I mean, it's easy to point out the baddies, right? I mean, those who are clearly and sometimes outright admittedly enemies of science and reason are easy to spot. If only it were as easy as having an evil goatee, that might make our jobs easier. But in fact, I sometimes prefer them. I know how to deal with them, right? It's easy to point out a fundamentalist because that's their thing. They're clearly, very clear on the whole, I'm your enemy and hate you and everything you stand for a deal. So it makes them easy to stand out rather than the posers and the fakers. Fakers are tricky. Again, the evil goatees would make it so much easier. But instead we have people who are like creationism, that whole like everything was made in six days? No, no, no, I'm not a creationist. But let me tell you of the science of intelligent design. Or also my favorite is, oh, praying? No, no, I'm not really an organized religion. Now, you can get the things you want by sending out positive vibes to the capital U universe, through the capital L law of capital A attraction. Quantum entailment, blah, blah, blah. Let me show you my vision board. And I'm hoping to show you a video. I hope you'll recognize the young girl asking a very simple science question. This was filmed at Caltech and hopefully you can spot the familiar young girl and what kind of answer she gets, what kind of answer she gets. Ask me a very basic science question. I heard Deepak mention that there are deeper ways of knowing and I get the impression that this is based on intuition and the subjective. And I'd like to know if we don't use the objective scientific method, how do we distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true? What's your name? Sarah. Thank you Sarah. Deepak, have at it. I think science is based on a subject-object split. I'm the observer and that's the observed. And it does extremely well based on the subject-object split. I am hoping that the truth will be found when we actually develop a science of consciousness that goes beyond the subject-object split because after all nature is one. Nature does not decide that this is the subject and that's the object. Nature says that both the subject and the object are my activity. So my prayer is that science will evolve to include consciousness in its evolution. What? I know what you're thinking. Deepak Chopra is kind of unfair. He makes it really easy to spot the fakers. He's like the king of the fakers. He sits on the iron throne of pseudoscience. But we all know people who believe in his quantum faux wisdom. And if you don't, and you laughed really hard at that iron throne reference, you might need to get out a little bit more. It's easy. You just go down your whole foods, look for the white chick with the dreadlocks. And she will tell you all about Chopra's chakras and crystals and everything. She likely calls herself a wiki and her shaman or something like that. But it's a really harmful thing to have fakers like Deepak Chopra. Especially the more sneaky versions of him like Dr. Oz. It was so easy to spot fakers. Because right now my grandma is probably watching Dr. Oz. And he'll be on TV every day mixing science and pseudoscience within nonsense that makes it really easy for the average person to confuse the two. He promotes nonsense easily. Skepticism, on the other hand, is a hard sell. Beliefs come naturally and easy, but don't, especially when it comes to stuff that we're personally invested in, is really difficult. But once you understand how to apply skepticism to the world, you begin to see the difference between the true believers and the hucksters. Between science and the real thing. Even if I don't understand a science topic itself, with skepticism I've found that I can at least begin to tell what science and what's just trying to sound like science. And this is something anyone can accomplish. Even a creator of graphic novels and comic books like myself with no formal science education. But as a creator I see the potential for entertainment, whether it's comic books, films, movies, TV, to give audiences examples of skepticism in use. To show us heroes that are role models for skeptics and critical thinkers. To have stories that warn us of the dangers of self-delusion and the ignorance that it can bring. The ignorance can bring a lot of harm. My favorite example that I love to use over and over again of how fiction can be a powerful tool for conveying a message is the 2010 film Inception. And you'll have to enjoy my little doodles of all the characters because I couldn't get the Inception horn. So I'll just have to go... Okay, that was good enough. The film can be seen as an allegory for storytelling itself. The main character Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is commissioned by a character named Saito, who is a wealthy businessman, who commissions him to plant an idea in a competitor's mind to sell off a company, a competing company. In the world of Inception this is done through entering their target's dreams and planting an idea in their subconscious. In this way Cobb is like the director of a film and Saito the studio money backing the project. And Cobb hires a team that act like the cast and crew, building a dream world, sort of a set, for their target and a narrative that they'll lead him through. But the key to Inception is that the target feels they arrived at the idea themselves. You can tell the difference between an idea you've just been given and one that you came to yourself. Storytelling takes the audience through such a journey like the dream world. And makes you feel using characters and scenarios makes you feel like you arrived at the story's idea yourself because you were given an experience rather than a lecture. This way it's possible to make people emotionally attached to your message because they feel they took part in it. It's not just my message, it's our message now because I helped you find it. So it's more like it's part of it as your own as well. One of my favorite and certainly the most famous skeptical hero in fiction is Sherlock Holmes. Although I must admit it's the modern BBC series of Benedict Cumberbatch. His rendition of The Consulting Detective that inspired me to join what is probably the largest and longest running fandom. And I've got to say, just the archive of Sherlock reaction gifts alone make it worth forgiving Arthur Conan Doyle's deeply disappointing interest in the supernatural and the occult. It all makes it worthwhile, folks. These are great and I'm sorry back there if your computer, I hope I don't blow up the computers with all these gifts piled into one slide. No, but seriously to me, Sherlock is the ultimate skeptical hero because his talents are made accessible especially through the character of Watson who is sort of like the audience is the reader's guide to Sherlock's methods. Sherlock demonstrates that his powers are available to everyone and anyone willing to dedicate themselves to careful observation and logical thinking. After each extraordinary conclusion that he comes up with, Watson has walked through Sherlock's methods and to me it's revealed as so much more amazing by the fact that you realize his thinking is within our grasp. It always feels like, well, I could have done that if only I apply careful observation and logic in the same way that Sherlock does. But Sherlock Holmes is sort of seen as emotionless and cold similar to his space-traveling modern-day successor Spock. These characters are seen as a sort of stereotype of science-based thinkers. The stereotype being that a skilled thinker is usually associated with a cold, calculating heart. Skepticism is often seen as cynicism or just some temporary lack of faith. More often than not it's the believers that are presented as our heroes and faith is seen as a virtue. But what I'd like to do instead is show that we can create heroes who reject ideology, the value skepticism as the tool with which we can distinguish, like I asked Deepak Chopra, to distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true. Which is a simple question and I did not get a simple answer. Oh, I hope you guys noticed in that video, of course that was me circa 2009. I had to be young again. I hope you noticed that as soon as he uttered his first sentence they panned back to the interviewer and I'm in the background just rolling my eyes condescendingly. I did not know that that was going to be filmed but I hope you caught that. Yes, so my current graphic novel series is Legend of the Star and it aims to do just that, to promote role models who are critical thinkers. It features a young heroine raised to be a thinker as well as a warrior. Her strength isn't in her unwavering beliefs but in her capacity for doubt and her attention to how the mind can trick itself. Another upcoming in progress book that I'm excited about is a guide to skepticism presented through manga through a comic book forum. It follows the story of a young girl who gets involved in chasing down a cat who escapes from Mr. Cosmos' Shop of Wonders. It turns into an adventure where she follows the little feline named Skepticat through a fair called the Extraordinary Expo learning about science, investigation, and skepticism while visiting various pavilions. As one example, the girl chases Skepticat into a house of mirrors. The fun house mirrors are used to explain the concept that our mind doesn't always show us the true reflection of reality. Like the warped mirrors, various cognitive biases can distort our perceptions, what we receive back. And skepticism is the act of trying to account for these biases and therefore trying to make the mirror as flat as possible in hopes of getting the most accurate reflection of how things are. Another pavilion takes her through the idea of scientific theories with the common amusement park game that gets you to shoot down the stack of cups with a ball. The stack of cups represents the theory and the ball a new discovery. The ball might be successful at knocking down a cup but it matters whether the cup is stacked on top or is part of the foundation of the structure. So if a ball hits a cup at the top it might just simply replace an important, replace a piece of information but if it hits something in the bottom row it takes out a piece of information very fundamental to the theory which could cause the entire structure to fall apart. But it also demonstrates that some theories have had structure added to them. For example Newton's theory of gravity being expanded on by Einstein. It's to the point that the foundation is so solid there is little chance of any ball ever actually knocking out part of it and therefore not really likely that a whole theory will crumble. So these are some of the ways that teaching skepticism can be made relatable through storytelling. A younger audience can follow a girl and a cute cat through adventure and through the character's own discoveries learn about science and science-based thinking. This approach is sort of the comic book textbook hybrid while Legend of the Star takes place in a science fantasy epic type scenario which delivers its messages about skepticism and secular humanism in a much more subtle approach. The heroine of Legend of the Star, Adora Star faces enemies who are zealous believers. They're true believers but she also comes across conflict with those who would be her allies against these extremists groups that share the same goal and the same enemy but find it difficult in working together because of differences in an opinion over how to reach their goals or over their different personal values. This gets to the heart I think of the most difficult but most important part of skepticism. If we truly want to see the difference between the reality that exists and the reality we simply desire we must divorce ourselves from our political, social and philosophical ideologies in order to use the skeptical process. It's that your chosen system needs to be applied by more skeptics or added to skepticism itself is simply an attempt to shield that belief from skeptical scrutiny. One of my favorite quotes from Peter Ustimoff I think really comes across my feelings about this that beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them. Skeptics are united not by belief nor by denial but by doubt. The challenge for us who want to promote science-based thinking is to realize that the price we pay for skepticism being for everyone is that we must work together even with people we may disagree with. It's easy to face off with a foe but how often do we have the courage to call it our friends for their lack of skepticism? I actually really like this Dumbledore quote about it's easier to stand up to your enemies than to your friends and then that little shy guy gets the points that win the house. You guys know what I'm talking about. Don't make me feel bad. Even with those we may disagree with we have to work together. We all have a big common goal in mind which is promoting skepticism and anything else should be set aside in order to work together to promote that goal. Whether you're liberal, conservative, feminist, environmentalist, capitalist, socialist, libertarian, secular or spiritual your claims are within the realm of skeptical inquiry and your values belong outside of its methodology. Storytelling can promote heroes who do just that who present a variety of different kinds of people all using skepticism. Skepticism isn't just for the nerds it's not just for the guys in the lab quotes it's not just for the people who wear weird vegan shirts. It's for everyone, literally everyone can use skepticism but that means that we have to get used to working with people disagree with us on things that aren't fact-based claims that are value judgments. Storytelling I think can give us role models that present this to readers and to audiences and I'm hoping that each of you today can become such a role model as well and I hope we can all be skeptics who remember skepticism is for everyone. Skepticism is for who? Skepticism is for who? Everyone. Excellent. Thank you very much. Sarah Mayhew, Skepticism is for everyone. Very nice, congratulations.