AUSTIN, Texas — MythBusters Host Adam Savage took to his first-ever South by Southwest stage with a mission, to help people see art and science as two complementary, not opposing, disciplines.
In a Monday afternoon talk entitled The Maker Age: Enlightened Views the original co-host of the now decade-plus-old Discovery Channel show explained that we need to stop viewing science and art as separate from us.
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"Having no formal training in either [art or science]," joked Savage, "I feel I am supremely trained to speak on both of them."
He encouraged the audience to not shy away from things they did not intrinsically understand and reminded them, "Ignorance is not bliss."
Savage said he's a big fan of Edward Snowden (who spoke via satellite to the SXSW crowd a few hours earlier).
"He spoke about social science and complex issues," said Savage. The questions he's raising constitute "a vital debate for us to have," continued Savage.
These issues have a bearing on "personal rights, copyrights, arts, science and everything. We owe it ourselves to educate ourselves, instead of just reading the headlines on Reddit and thinking we understand, which I am totally guilty of," he said.

Image: Mashable / Lance Ulanoff

Savage talked at length about art, explaining his own father was an artist who spent hours a day working on his art, "But steadfastly refused to talk about it."
The MythBuster host encouraged people to avoid dismissing the art they did not immediately understand, but added that "it's often said that there is no bad art, and that is total bullshit, there's all sorts of bad art."
On the topic of science, Savage noted that "nothing is beyond your understanding. You want proof," he added.
Savage, who took questions from Twitter, revealed a little bit about how he got his start on MythBusters and the pressures of fame.
It was Savage's MythBusters co-host, Jamie Hyneman, who gave Adam his first job in special effects. When Hyneman was asked to host the show, he asked Savage to join him.
In talking about the creative process, Savage revealed some of the stress he, and he thinks other DIYers, often feel.
"Seventy-five percent of the way into any project I'm doing, I will think, 'this is total crap, I don't know what I'm doing.' I know I have to push past this."
Savage admitted that part of this because he, like many of us, can sometimes feel like a total fraud.
"When I worked at ILM [Industrial Light and Magic], I always thought I was going to get a tap on my shoulder, 'You don't know what you're doing, go home."
And fame does nothing to ameliorate this concern. "Getting notoriety for what you do only accentuates your feeling of being a fraud," Adam told the SXSW audience.