Mental Trappings

"consider a situation in which a father and his son are driving down the road. The car collides with a tree and the father is killed. The boy is rushed to the nearest hospital where he is prepared for emergency surgery. On entering the surgery suite, the surgeon says, "I can't operate on this boy. He's my son."
The apparent paradox is caused by a hasty generalization. The reader, upon seeing the word surgeon, applies a poll of their knowledge of surgeons (regardless of its depth) and reasons that since the majority of surgeons are male, the surgeon is a man, hence the contradiction: the father of the child, a man, was killed in the crash."

- Wikipedia

This is a common one, it goes around claiming to be "proof" that we're sexist and assume only men are surgeons. So sexist in fact, that even faced with the (supposed) choice of the surgeon either being a mother or the same man from the crash, we assume it's impossible.

But I don't think so. I think it's just a trick question. Assume if you can, that a person has a neutral view of the sexuality of most surgeons going into the story. Then faced with 4 sentences, altogether containing the words 'father' twice, 'son' twice, 'he' twice, and 'boy' twice. With no other sexuality mentioned. That's 8 references to males, and zero to women in 4 sentences. This trick can be used in many different ways, to subtly suggest that the wrong answer. If you've ever heard a person ask you "Say "10" ten times." You say it. "Ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten, ten." You'll probably use your fingers to count (I'm psychic) and then the person asks "What's an aluminum can made out of?" Then more often than not, the response is "tin". The person is persuaded to the answer "tin" even though not only is the real answer obvious, it's GIVEN in the question! Are we then to assume, by the logic of those who claim sexism, that people who say "tin" thought in their minds all the aluminum cans they've seen and concluded objectively that most of them were made of tin? The truth is, you don't think the surgeon can't be the mother, you simply have been led into a mental trap of only male options.

I only posted this rant because I read this crap on Wikipedia in the article about paradoxes. It's bullshit. Wikipedia isn't hard fact, it's collective opinion. I would like to point out, the first time I heard this riddle, was in a game aptly called "Mind Trap". Then I saw it in "Tin Cup" where the woman asserts the men are sexist for thinking the surgeon was a man, and apparently that's what Wikipedia thinks too. That and people think aluminum cans are made of tin.