Rebecca has a post giving 10 good reasons to ban her from the Bay Area Science Festival.
Two weeks ago, PZ Myers pointed out that Dr. Eliza Sutton of the University of Washington in Seattle was the source of a rumor that PZ had contracted gonnorhea at SkepchickCon last year. Sutton posts on blogs and social media as “Skeptickle” or “Skeptixx,” where she has been open about her profession as a doctor, and has also previously declared her own name.
Obviously, a medical doctor diagnosing hated enemies with an STD is a gross breach of medical ethics, which is why a link to PZ’s post was Tweeted from the Skepchick Twitter feed, which we use occasionally for quick links that aren’t worth full posts.
I found her behavior so abhorrent that I retweeted the @Skepchicks Tweet. Obviously, this inspired someone to start a petition begging the Bay Area Science Festival to ban me from hosting my comedy science panel quiz show Quiz-o-Tron, which happens this Saturday, October 25, at the Castro Theatre. Advance tickets are only $10!
Obviously. It was fine for Dr Sutton to start a story that PZ had contracted gonnorhea at SkepchickCon last year and terrible for Rebecca to share a tweet about it. That’s all terrifically clear.
So she lists and explains the ten reasons.
9.
Devin isn’t really sure what’s going on, but he knows he doesn’t like it! And that’s why he will not be attending my comedy science quiz show with “Survivor” contestant Yau-Man Chan this Saturday.
Number 3 is especially cogent.
3.
I assume Bruno is referring to SJW’s, a new social-justice themed chain restaurant currently opening in Target shopping centers across the country. Though I do not own this chain, I am excited about their menu items, like delicious cheese-stuffed FriendZonis. This is absolutely a great reason to have me barred from hosting Quiz-o-Tron, the world’s best comedy science quiz show on October 25 in San Francisco.
And 1 is, I think, conclusive.
1.
Obo is absolutely correct. In retrospect, I should have taken the time to fully examine Dr. Sutton’s important work on e-diagnosing people she hates with gonorrhea. What were her methods? Did she get a blood sample from PZ or any of the Skepchick bloggers? Did she access our medical records? These are the questions I should have asked, instead of retweeting that tweet linking to that blog post that pointed out that she said those things. In order to make up for this oversight on my part, I hereby offer to engage Dr. Sutton in a debate over whether PZ Myers has gonorrhea. She may choose the time, the date, the format, and the moderator.
I’m available any time except for October 25, when I’ll be hosting Quiz-o-Tron at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco as part of Bay Area Science Festival.
If I were in San Francisco I would so go to that.
Huh. You know… my knee’s been a bit tetchy of late…
I’d better get in touch with Dr. Sutton, I guess. I mean, apparently, I might have gonorrhea. But, hey, on the bright side, it sound’s like she’s pretty good with this stuff, can just do the whole diagnosis right over the net… an email should suffice…
Seriously, I’m trying, now, to picture just what patient interviews in her practice are like…
(Ripply fade to dream sequence… We find ourselves in A Seattle Doctor’s Office…)
ME: So, Doctor, my knee’s been doing this thing…
Sutton: Gonorrhea.
ME: Um… wut?
Sutton: It’s gonorrhea. Obviously. I mean, you were awkward around girls in your youth, right?
ME: I guess …
Sutton: Friendly to SJW types online?
ME: Well, yeah, that is me… How’d you know? Is that dangerous?
Sutton: Well, you got gonorrhea from it, didn’t you?
ME: Wow. I guess my high school health classes didn’t explain this stuff nearly so well as I thought…
Sutton: (Sounding tired…) I know… I know… I’ve been telling them for years: you’ve got to warn people… But they kept going on about ‘sexual contact’ and so on… Say… You haven’t been to any conferences attended or organized by feminists, have you?
Me: ( Turning pale ) … Umm… Not many?
Sutton: Right. Let’s get you on some antibiotics, stat…
…
Mind, on the bright side, does this mean I can keep right on beating the hell out of my knees on snowboards, or whatever the hell else I feel like doing to the poor old things? Long as I stay away from those nasty unbelieving feminists? Bit of a mixed bag, that… But, well…
(Yes, sure, sure, I’d miss you, all of you, but listen, apparently it’s that or my knees, and I’ve got to control my risk factors here, I guess… )
That is comedy gold from Rebeeca Watson. I can’t quite figure out whether the people she quotes are the straight man feed or the clowns (or both maybe).
Reading this after her slapdown of Dawkins’ Dear Muslima piece, I’m beginning to think she’s on a roll.
Go Rebecca!
I dislike when people make claims like this. It wasn’t a diagnosis or a clear breach of medical ethics. There’s nothing in the AMA’s code of ethics or the Hippocratic oath which speaks to it, and it’s not uncommon for doctors to talk in the media about the implications of known symptoms of people, as in the current stories about ebola patients. [Disclaimer: this is based on one class I had on professional ethics which covered medical ethics and me going through the AMA code and oath just now. I’ll gladly defer to any medical professional who disagrees]
That said, it was awful, hateful and gross so just say that.
I know of medical professionals who emphatically do disagree. I don’t know that I can share their names, but they exist.
They’re right, and I’m wrong.