Cordial Deconstruction

The Skeptical Society of St. Louis (Facebook Link) will be hosting a Skeptics in the Pub featuring a talk by Kathleen Dyer, PhD (Professor of Child and Family Science at the California State University, Fresno) On Friday, June 2nd at 6:30PM -9:00 PM at Alpha Brewing Company in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Everyone is welcome to attend (SSSL members & non-members alike), admission is free -no cover charge, registration is NOT required.

Don’t drink? Please come anyway. Consumption of alcoholic beverages is also NOT required.

See below for more details:

SitP with Dr. Katie Dyer – Isn’t It Just Common Sense?

When: Fri, June 2, 6:30pm – 9:00pm

Where: Alpha Brewing Company, 4310 Fyler Ave, St. Louis, MO 63116, USA (map)

Event Links:

https://www.facebook.com/events/5697283430375449/
https://www.meetup.com/skepticalstl/events/293447769/

Description:

The Skeptical Society of St. Louis is excited to host Dr. Dyer in partnership with our friends at Alpha Brewing for our next Skeptics in the Pub (SitP): Isn’t It Just Common Sense? Confronting False Beliefs about Children and Families  
 
Kathleen Dyer, PhD (Professor of Child and Family Science at the California State University, Fresno) identifies some of the most widely held false beliefs about children and families and describes the social science research methods employed to expose them as false. 

• Are oldest siblings more responsible?
• Does praise help to raise children’s self-esteem? 
•  Do opposites attract? 
•  Sugar makes kids hyper…..right?

Bring your questions about children and families — let’s put our common sense to the test. It is a celebration of science in the interest of improving the everyday lives of ordinary people. Dr. Dyer considers why these false beliefs are so readily endorsed and so hard to dispel, and provides evidence of strategies that can help challenge them.

An excerpt of Dr. Dyer being “interviewed by Susan Gerbic at CSICon in 2016:
“[…]I’ve been teaching students and parents how to interpret the research on things like corporal punishment, bed-sharing, and breastfeeding for two decades. I’ve also been combating nonsense such as the anti-vax movement and the Mozart effect, because those issues are salient to my discipline[…]”