Quick Riddle (should take a only few seconds). Please respond if you can...?

Question

Request #0: Obviously, avoid reading the responses first.
Request #1: Please let me know how much time you had to think before getting your response.
Request #2: Please specify if you knew this beforehand
Request #3: Please indicate any short philosophical explanation (or even any thought) that comes to your mind.

A father and son, on their way to baseball game, are involved in a horrible car wreck. The son is rushed to the hospital and wheeled into the emergency room. The doctor, seeing the patient, exclaims, "I can't operate - that's my son!" Question: How can this be?

This is not orginal (I am not the source). I am merely posting this as I am curious to see how people react to this.

Thanks.

Answer 1

0: okay
1: less than a minute
2: I've heard it before but I didn't remember the answer at first
3: The key to the riddle is that "a" father and son are going to the game. They could be anyone's father or son. The only relationship that is stated is that the accident victim is the son of the surgeon.

I think the bit about the baseball game has a lot to do with the riddle working. Because the US has a cliche of biological fathers and sons bonding at baseball games it implies the "a" father and son are related. If they were simply driving in a car it would be harder to distract attention from the fact that no one said they were related.

______________________________________

Wow. I read through the other responses and they were almost all about how the doctor is the mom. I can see how that would work but I still like my answer.

At first I was skeptical about asking this question in a philosophy forum but now I'm a believer. It's interesting that the responses were split between the not related theory, the mom theory, and the step-dad theory.

I also enjoyed how everyone railed against the stereotype of the male doctor while I pointed out the stereotype of male baseball bonding.

It's sort of like a Rorschach test.

Answer 2

#0. Okay, didn't read the responses first.
#1. It took me no time to figure out the answer because
#2. Yes I have heard this one several times before, however, I do remember being surprised at the answer and with myself for not getting it faster.
#3. I think it's kind of sad that we still automatically ascribe positions of power and importance to men first. Even I, as a woman and advocate for women's rights, automatically my first thought was as the father as the doctor. The mother didn't come to mind until later.

I think there's another reasonable explanation though, for automatically assuming the father is the doctor (or maybe I'm just trying to justify my own response) but there is the concept of recency (not sure if that's the best term) but since we just finished reading and relating to the father as the parent of this son (the mother wasn't mentioned at all) it also makes sense that we would first reach for the the father as the parent in our answer first.

Answer 3

If the Doctor had seen the man, The doctor may have also said "I can't operate on him neither, that is my husband!"
request #1 - maybe 2 seconds at the most.
request #2 - no
request #3 - Is this a test of sexism maybe? I must admit that very very briefly i pictured a male doctor, then a female doctor.
I suppose most people may well think of a male doctor first, not particularly because of sexism, but more because it's the 'norm'. I had to take someone to hospital today, and the doctor came out to the A&E dept. because he was upset, The doctor was female, so that may have had an influence I guess.

Answer 4

As soon as I got to the bit about the car wreck, I knew what the question was. This riddle is at least forty years old, probably much older, and it comes from a time when female doctors were uncommon. The thing about this riddle that has never made any sense to me is that the doctor can't operate on her son. Why not? Is it illegal? Unethical? It would seem to be more unethical to let the boy die.

Answer 5

The first two characters are someone's father and someone's son (not necessarily each other's).

I read somewhere that Al Gore used to joke about a man and a dog that were together. Someone came along and asked the man, "Does your dog bite?" He answered, "No." The man reached down to pet the dog, and the dog bit him. He exclaimed, "I thought you said your dog doesn't bite!" He replied, "That's not my dog."

It also resembles the Shadowman story from the 1980s' Twilight Zone revival show.

#1: a few seconds.

Answer 6

The doctor is the boy's mother.
I knew it right away this time, but when I first heard it as a child I couldn't figure it out. Many people fall prey to the notion that the doctor must be a man, and fail to consider the alternative.

Answer 7

No original responses!

You note that a father and son are involved in this awful accident. However you never specify that the son is, in fact, related in any way to the father.

Every male alive is a son and could just as easily be included in your scenario with "a [given] father." Your readers simply assume their relationship...but it is never specified.

Answer 8

My answer was immediate -- one can only have 2 parents --a father and a mother. The father was in the wreck with the son, that only leaves one parent -- the mother.

Answer 9

The doctor was the boy's mother.
I have heard the joke before .. I believe it depends on your mind set whether you think of the surgeon as a woman or not. in today's world I see nothing wrong with women doctors for they are as good as men.

Answer 10

1-11 seconds
2.-No
3-
A.) The man driving the boy to the baseball game must be the boy's step father. The Dr. must be the real father.
B.) Both men might have been gay, therefore they would have to shre the boy.