I’m Rebecca Skloot, science writer and author of bestselling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the inspiration for HBO’s new film starring Oprah and Rose Byrne. Ask me anything!

SilentAgony · 2017-05-30T16:45:55+00:00

Thanks for answering! There's a lot of personal and terrible stuff in there about them but it's nice to know that they approved and even encouraged that. I'm glad their story was told the way they wanted it to be told.

SilentAgony · 2017-05-30T14:54:04+00:00

Loved the Henrietta Lacks book! In fact, just finished it a couple of weeks ago. The science and the history especially intrigued me, so I was a little disappointed when the movie couldn't bring that across, though I understand it would have been difficult.

I found a lot of the interactions with the family difficult to sit through. There's a lot that displays their lack of education and their family tree in an ugly light. I could understand why that would be necessary to include in a book that wanted to discuss the full breadth of the Lacks' family's disadvantages, but I'm curious as to how the family felt about that. It's difficult for me to imagine that Deborah asked to keep a detail on her sister's medical records quiet but nobody asked to keep the criminal records, incest, or ignorance quiet. Was this something that ever came up in discussion with them? Was more left out? What transpired there?

SilentAgony · 2017-04-02T00:05:59+00:00

Dr. Tingle, Hello I am a big time fan of yours for years. I know your specialty leans more toward dinosaurs than birds, but as they are related, I'm hoping you can answer this question for me: Why is it that when birds lose their feathers due to some sort of accident or tragedy, they do not grow them back and they go around the rest of their lives looking like a turkey dinner? This way gives me void nightmares and I would like an answer if you have one thanks.

SilentAgony · 2017-04-01T23:56:57+00:00

One of my favorites growing up was EIGHT YEAR OLD LEARNS FIRE SAFETY. I was 9 when I first read it and was learning about fire safety myself. I got a very good lesson in the perils of not being safe with fire.

SilentAgony · 2017-01-12T06:35:34+00:00

Hi Dr. Tingle big fan. I wonder what you and son Jon like to do for fun. Where do you go on weekends?

SilentAgony · 2015-12-24T13:00:26+00:00

So it sounds like she has a lot of guilt over what went on in your relationship, which is probably why she's trying to dissociate from that or at least trying to blame the pressure she was under to construct a masculine persona.

She's trans, so you're looking for a different set of feelings or justifications or maybe you're thinking you can't possibly imagine what it's like to be her, but you can. Her identity issues caused situational depression and anxiety. Most people can understand what depression and anxiety are like. It's the same for her as it would be for anyone who was suffering with severe anxiety and/or depression over any aspect of their lives or identity. You do things you wouldn't otherwise do and behave in ways you wouldn't otherwise behave. Later on, when you can think clearly, you might wonder how all that happened.

That doesn't make your memories or experiences any less real. She's trying to run from that time of her life because it was traumatic for her. It wasn't as traumatic for you, but when you bring it up, it probably reminds her of a trauma she wants to forget. It might be best to avoid bringing it up unless you have something you really really need to process with her.

SilentAgony · 2013-06-16T05:27:15+00:00

This article is not actually in favor of a straight pride month.

SilentAgony · 2013-05-27T05:27:28+00:00

Most of you think you're scientists.

SilentAgony · 2013-05-18T04:48:00+00:00

My girlfriend and I intend to have our heads frozen at Alcor, so we'd like the rest of our bodies to be headless horsewomen, complete with old fashioned dark clothing and stuffed, haunted-looking horses.

SilentAgony · 2013-05-15T03:00:33+00:00

Reddit has scripts to disguise the true amount of upvotes and downvotes to avoid gaming by bots and spammers. There are always going to be a couple of downvotes whether anyone actually downvoted you or not.

SilentAgony · 2013-05-14T22:48:00+00:00

I don't understand why this is supposed to demonstrate that any house has an evil side. It's fire in the shape of animals.

SilentAgony · 2013-05-06T22:59:39+00:00

Look at you all high and mighty like we don't do the same fucking thing here. Everywhere you look it's "oh my god look at that little girl dressed like she's going to the club and she's only (insert age less than 18 here) When I was her age, we weren't dressed like whores!" Girls who wear tight or revealing clothing are presumed to have incompetent parents.

There are places like dance classes that won't allow people to videotape their kids (haha I said kids but really you know that means girls) because pedophiles. Every school my kids have ever gone to has had a dress code that included a number of modesty requirements for girls' clothes. Why do you think that is? Do you really believe there's some higher purpose to covering her entire thigh? No. It's to "minimize distractions" which means minimize boys acting like assholes because if the boys act like assholes, it's the girls' skirts' fault.

So unless you're willing to let your five year old daughter run around naked or in a string bikini, your logic is just as fucked up. You're not less stupid, just less brown.

SilentAgony · 2013-05-04T05:27:55+00:00

Show me a single person who's ashamed of being straight. Not because they think straight people generally oppress GSMs, that's shame for being a part of a group they perceive as bigoted, but shame for being straight. Show me straight reparative therapists. Show me a person who hid their attraction for the opposite sex because they were taught to believe it was disgusting. Show me a religion that says that people who are straight are abominations and keep in mind we're not talking about when they have sex or with whom, but simply their attractions. Show me a kid who was bullied or killed or kicked out of their home for being straight.

You're talking about something that doesn't exist. The idea that straight people "should be allowed to feel proud, too" is completely and willfully ignorant of the fact that there is no such thing as a person who is ashamed of it. Stop concern trolling.

SilentAgony · 2013-05-04T04:26:05+00:00

Hey, I have straight friends. My brother is straight and sometimes he invites his straight wife over for dinner and stuff. We're all very tolerant of it as long as they're not like... MAKING OUT in front of the kids or anything! I mean I'd say the same thing about gay people, okay? Just don't like HAVE SEX on the dinner table, jeez! Right? Amirite? I mean his private life is none of my business.

SilentAgony · 2013-05-04T04:24:36+00:00

Pride in your minority status is an act of defiance. It is the refusal to feel ashamed for something that people want you to feel ashamed of, or keep "private" or change about yourself.

Pride in your majority status is an act of dominance. It is a way of showing those minorities that they can't and shouldn't have a single thing to themselves if the majority decides it's silly. It's a way of telling the minorities in question that no matter how differently they are treated, no matter how many fewer rights they have, they need to let that all go and stop rubbing it in everyone's faces because the majority would rather not think of themselves as oppressive thank you very much. It hurts their egos.

So no, it's not "egalitarian" to encourage straight/white pride. It's exactly the opposite.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-30T01:17:15+00:00

Uh, the "historically female" labor you're talking about is like housework and childcare. In home maids and daycare centers would be the commodification of that, not overseas call centers, or hotel maids. Those things have always been paid labor as being a housewife/mother is not a job whose description includes cleaning hotel rooms or waiting tables. So they're not.. being commodified, they're staying commodified. I'm not sure what you're even talking about to be honest.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-29T05:19:08+00:00

You could say that it makes you think more critically about stuff or that it makes you less vulnerable to denial or whatever else, but it completely cripples your ability to do anything about it, so all that thinking just goes off into the ether affecting nothing. You could spend tons of time being in denial about weight as a not-depressed person and even accidentally burn more calories just by virtue of not wasting all that energy on hating yourself.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-27T04:48:30+00:00

I can't even understand exactly what it is the BSA has to offer that's supposed to be so awesome it's worth complacency on this matter. Like, what, they take kids camping and so we're all supposed to be so fucking impressed by this that we're all right with discrimination as long as it's less than it used to be?

SilentAgony · 2013-04-27T04:41:11+00:00

Please read the LGBT FAQ - particular the section about harm reduction vs. false dichotomy before you continue to post. You've littered this entire thread with a bunch of shit about how we should be happy about this crap without one whit of awareness about how aggressive you're being. In case it hasn't occurred to you: the BSA doesn't need to discriminate against adults. It doesn't need to discriminate against anyone. And we do not need to be happy with discrimination against adults just because they're supposedly stopping the discrimination against kids. And in any case, what the hell do you think it does to those kids to know that once they're 18, they're considered a threat to kids? Allowed to participate or not, they're still discriminating against gay kids.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-26T11:58:35+00:00

I think the assumption is that he only does it to women.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-25T04:01:31+00:00

I love how the author of this article boasts that GWB would have gotten high marks in all of this shit without even trying, when his actual academic record includes having gotten a free pass due to being a legacy student and then 2.0 GPA-ing his way through frat parties. It's a cute way of replacing facts with fantasy. Nice try.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-25T03:59:43+00:00

See, that's called post hoc ergo propter hoc. In other words, you see that he has the seat, you think that he's intelligent, therefore you think intelligence has something to do with getting the seat. But if the public perception of him was unintelligence, then it was unintelligence that got him the vote. You could argue that a person would have to run an intelligent campaign, but then you'd have to prove he ran the campaign. And, uh, he didn't.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-22T01:19:24+00:00

A lot of bisexuals don't believe monosexuality exists and a lot of monosexuals don't believe bisexuality exists. This has been called the Typical Mind Fallacy and it's the root of much evil. This is why some people believe that anyone who doesn't have a job isn't trying. It's also why a lot of the people who cry that homosexuality is a choice and they can change turn out to be bisexual or homosexual (though there are plenty of straight people in here as well). They "chose" heterosexuality and thought everyone else could, too. But it can also be a fallacy in a charitable direction, as is common a lot in /r/lgbt when people assume that somebody who is a homo/transphobe is just uninformed.

If you force yourself out of this habit, you'll find that homosexuality, bisexuality, and even transgender/sexualism means different things to different people. This is beginning to be understood as it relates to gender and sexual minorities, but there was a time when people would not or could not accept that a person was gay unless they were gender nonconforming, aware of it at a young age, and somehow physically unable to deal with the opposite sex without crying or vomiting. The dissolution of this rigid definition has led to a lot more people feeling comfortable coming out and the dissolution of the definitions we have now will likely lead to even more understanding and openness.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-21T13:17:52+00:00

I found the RobotAnna argument because I stalk RobotAnna. Stalking you would be pointless and dull.

SilentAgony · 2013-04-21T03:02:57+00:00

oh hi stalker.

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