Quack demands Fauci debate him, complains when Fauci fails to take him up on the attractive opportunity.
GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, more commonly known as Dr Oz, is facing backlash from the medical community after his sustained attacks on infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci in his campaign ads.
Oz got his celebrity-start by appearing on Oprah Winfrey’s show. He’s a woo-peddler. Fauci has other things to do.
Appearing on Newsmax last Thursday, Dr Oz said he wanted to debate Dr Fauci on vaccine mandates and natural immunity from coronavirus infections. “He is a petty tyrant. He got Covid wrong. He continues to get it wrong,” Dr Oz told the outlet.
In a separate tweet that he posted along with his campaign ad video, Dr Oz said: “It’s past time Fauci faces the fact that he got Covid wrong. So, doctor to doctor – let’s debate. This Doctor is in, are you?”
In what though?
Comments
16 responses to “Petty?”
Deep shit, I expect.
Surgeons tend to think they are the bestest doctors, most likely because they get paid the most. All they need is a steady hand and a set of instructions. Okay, well, practice, too. But they also think they are scientists. While they are the beneficiaries of medical science, they are rarely scientists. There must me a corollary to the Salem Hypothesis’ statement that creationists who claim to be scientists are engineers. “If a doctor claims to know more than a medical scientist, then that doctor is a surgeon.
(I mean no disrespect for any surgeon who may operate on me in the future. You’re the best!)
Most of the male surgeons I have encountered have been pompous narcissists, who went into surgery for the esteem, the high earnings, the power – and the fact that most of the actual talking-to-patients stuff can be carried out by underlings, so they only have to see the patients when the latter are asleep.
I have a lot of doctors in my extended family. None of them are surgeons. Surgeons were occasionally the butt of jokes.
Most doctors are not scientists. Doctors, like engineers, use the results of science, but do not usually engage in science. Doctors, on average, are more religious than scientists.
That phenomenon led people to think Ben Carson was more brilliant than any other person out there – he was not only a surgeon, but a brain surgeon. How smart is that?
Carson was a mediocre thinker, though I understand a good surgeon. He was narrowly focused on his specialty, probably knew little of the actual science behind it, and scorned learning from others, who were lesser beings.
I get in this discussion with people all the time; most doctors are not scientists but technologists. The actual science is done by Ph.D.s and M.S.s with the help of a cadre of poorly paid, overworked graduate students. Doctors learn how to keep the body running.
It’s like I’ve had people ask me when I disagree with them on a quote they throw at me from Einstein. “Do you think you’re smarter than Einstein?” For a long time, I tried to explain how ecology really works, that bees are not the only pollinators, and that Einstein didn’t actually say what they are attributing to him anyway. That never worked. Now i just answer “yes”. Their stunned look is priceless. I then explain that I know a lot more about ecology than Einstein who (1) was not an ecologist and (2) died before we even learned a lot of what we know about ecology now., Only then do I bother with the ‘Einstein didn’t actually say that’.
I’m confused. Is Dr. Fauci a candidate on the same ballot as Oz? If not, then why debate him? I hope whoever is running against Oz uses the footage of his Congressional testimony wherein he admits he’s peddling feelgood bullshit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/15/that-time-congress-railed-on-dr-oz-for-his-miracle-diet-pills/
I have a friend, bigtime into dietary supplements, who used to be a Dr Oz advocate. Then he changed to defending Dr Oz as an entertainer rather than an expert, then he shut up about him. Dr Oz is indeed an entertainer, and a dangerous one.
Re “Are you smarter than Einstein”: people so often assume “smart” is the same as “knowledgeable”, and about everything. If someone is shown to be ignorant about something, “I guess you’re not so smart after all”. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. (Iknklast, I loved that anecdote about the bee quote; I would love to have seen that.)
“If you want to sound smart, make up a quote and attribute it to Einstein. If you want to sound funny, make up a quote and attribute it to Mark Twain. If you want to sound smart and funny, make up a quote and attribute it to Voltaire.”
Woody Allen said that.
What an ozhole.
Hmm. I was thinking of posting some snarky comment about what it makes you sound like if you make up a quote and attribute it to Woody Allen, but I’d better refrain. No offence intended. ;-)
One quote often attributed to Einstein: “Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.” He may of course have said it, but the closest I have been able to get to that statement, is the following, from a paper he wrote in Philosophy of Science in 1934:
Hardly simple, eh?
Harald,
If it makes you feel any better, my usual go-to for made up quotes is Dorothy Parker. She doesn’t get the misattention she deserves.
Mehmet’s last name in Turkish is Öz, which means “pure”. Turks didn’t normally have a last name until Atatürk’s time; when they finally adapted them, many used “Öz” as one element (e.g., “Öztürk). I’d suggest that Mehmet change his last name to “Özbok”.
“I never said half the things I said.” — Yogi Berra
Presumably because Fauci has become a huge boogey-man for the far Right in the USA, so performative posturing about “debating” him is red meat for the clamoring hordes. If Jimmy Stewart were still alive and saying “vaccines to counter covid-19 are good”, then Oz would surely be challenging him to a debate, probably under a banner proclaiming loudly “Doctor Oz Goes To Washington!”
Mehmet Oz, whom I will not dignify with the title he has sullied, is an amoral quack and a con artist; Dr. Anthony Fauci is one of the world’s foremost experts in his field. Legitimate experts should debunk phonies and con artists, but never debate them. Formal public debates with phonies grant legitimacy to those who don’t deserve it, and most debate formats favor the most unscrupulous liar and gifted emotional manipulator, not the person with the best arguments. Debate can only be constructive and informative when all participants are honest actors who sincerely dedicate themselves to genuine reasoned argumentation rather than manipulative fallacies and rhetorical ploys. (This is why political debates are universally neither constructive nor informative.)
If you’re looking for people who are smarter than Einstein, try sci.physics.relativity, possibly the highest concentration of crackpots in the known Universe.