Atlanta Skeptics in the Pub

Local dog trainer/behavior consultant/pet first aid instructor and sarcasm expert Mailey E. McLaughlin, M.Ed. (The Pooch Professor) has been working with dogs and people for almost 30 years. She ran hugely successful Obedience classes at the Atlanta Humane Society (where she is also the behavior expert) for 10 years, and currently provides house calls for maladjusted mutts in the metro area. Mailey considers herself a "cynical optimist" when it comes to life. She survived 9 years of Catholic school, and has been an atheist since the age of 14 when the baby Jesus appeared to her and convinced her he wasn't real. She enjoys using her math skills in Sudoku, climbing really tall trees for fun, correcting other people's grammar and talking to herself in the car.

Mailey will be discussing some common myths about dogs and dog training (and one cool cat factoid thrown in for good measure for all you ailurophiles out there) in her presentation, "No Need to Whisper: Your Dog is Not the Problem." No actual dogs have been harmed in the making of this presentation, though a few people have been annoyed, probably.

[ Slides of Mailey's presentation are available at http://podcasts.abruptmedia.com/AtlantaSkeptics/asitp-0011.pdf ]

Local dog trainer/behavior consultant/pet first aid instructor and sarcasm expert Mailey E. McLaughlin, M.Ed. (The Pooch Professor) has been working with dogs and people for almost 30 years. She ran hugely successful Obedience classes at the Atlanta Humane Society (where she is also the behavior expert) for 10 years, and currently provides house calls for maladjusted mutts in the metro area. Mailey considers herself a "cynical optimist" when it comes to life. She survived 9 years of Catholic school, and has been an atheist since the age of 14 when the baby Jesus appeared to her and convinced her he wasn't real. She enjoys using her math skills in Sudoku, climbing really tall trees for fun, correcting other people's grammar and talking to herself in the car.

Mailey will be discussing some common myths about dogs and dog training (and one cool cat factoid thrown in for good measure for all you ailurophiles out there) in her presentation, "No Need to Whisper: Your Dog is Not the Problem." No actual dogs have been harmed in the making of this presentation, though a few people have been annoyed, probably.

[ Slides of Mailey's presentation are available at http://podcasts.abruptmedia.com/AtlantaSkeptics/asitp-0011.pdf ]

Proponents of conspiracy theories are very clever and have figured out how we, the exalted and all-powerful, remain at the same time everywhere and unseen. In this evil workshop, Bob will introduce budding universal overlords to the strategies by which they can sheathe their ubiquity in anonymity.

[ Slides of Mr. Blaskiewicz's presentations are available at http://podcasts.abruptmedia.com/AtlantaSkeptics/asitp-0010.pdf ]

Proponents of conspiracy theories are very clever and have figured out how we, the exalted and all-powerful, remain at the same time everywhere and unseen. In this evil workshop, Bob will introduce budding universal overlords to the strategies by which they can sheathe their ubiquity in anonymity.

[ Slides of Mr. Blaskiewicz's presentations are available at http://podcasts.abruptmedia.com/AtlantaSkeptics/asitp-0010.pdf ]

This month, we have Sean Sullivan telling us about skepticism and economics. Or, rather, how we need more of one in the other.

This month, we have Sean Sullivan telling us about skepticism and economics. Or, rather, how we need more of one in the other.

Atlanta's own J. Paul Daigle is going to talk about skeptical promotion online, but from a different angle than you've probably heard before.

Brian Thompson has graciously agreed to come to Atlanta to help us raise money for the Atlanta Skepticamp this summer! Brian will be interviewing Atlanta's own Blake Smith (co-host of the Monster Talk podcast), and Lindsay Starke (writer and conspiracy expert). We are also expecting some exciting visitors who are coming into town for the event. Nothing is confirmed yet but there may be sightings of loud astronomers and flora-dwelling crustaceans... you never know.

Join us for a tour through the mind of Ken Ham as Bob and Eve present "How I Spent My Winter Vacation: Skeptics Visit the Creation Museum." Eve and Bob are fairly new to Atlanta. They received their Ph.D.s in English at Saint Louis University. Bob is a Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech, where he teaches writing and literature. He wrote his dissertation on the fiction and memoirs of American WWII combat veterans, and he is currently teaching a writing class that focuses on conspiracy theories in literature and history. He is co-authoring an article (with Washington University physics student John Flavin) about using Carl Sagan's novel Contact to teach students about the scientific method and skepticism. Eve's dissertation was on body and soul poems in Old and Middle English literature. She recently published an article on a possible source for the addition to the 12th-century poem, "The Grave." She has submitted an article on creationist interpretations of Beowulf to Skeptic magazine. Bob and Eve are coauthoring a critical thinking and writing textbook that focuses on evaluating and writing about extraordinary claims.

LaVerne is new to the world of organized skepticism, having just discovered us at last year's SkeptiCamp. She will talk about what she's learned since then, how it's affected her life, and trials and treasures during her year as a Virgin Skeptic.