To clarify further, is there such a thing as a question not worth asking? I was a teacher for 2 years, and I tried my best to be open minded to questions… but sometimes they drove me crazy.
The only time I considered a question dumb was when I feel like the student should/could reasonably work out the answer for themselves, but were too lazy to try. Or when a student asked a question that had just been answered several times, that also got on my nerves, though the question itself wasn’t dumb (just the timing).
So what say you? Are there any dumb questions? Is that question itself dumb?
A doctor I worked for had one of those demotivational posters that asked this question. The answer was, “No, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots”.
There are what appear to be stupid questions at places like Yahoo Answers, but most of the really stupid ones are people trolling.
It boils down to the fact that people can’t know what they haven’t been taught or haven’t been exposed to. Some questions they should be able to figure out on their own, but many people haven’t been taught basic reasoning or logic, either. Especially on a site like this, I’ve seen many apparently stupid questions turn out to be more complicated than I thought. Things like “what is flame?” Most high school teachers would stop at the answer to a different question, “what is fire?” But that’s not the end of the story.
So, no. Unless it’s a troll question, there are no stupid questions. (Only stupid people.)
Mu means the question is not well formed enough to have an answer. Because sometimes questions are used in a deliberately mean way, for example rhetorical questions intended only to wound another person, to score political points or enforce bigotry.
I’d say that bona fide queries sincerely intended to fill a gap in knowledge are never dumb. I’d also say that queries when the answer is usually known by the questioner, but the only intention is to hurt someone, are dumb—because in my values emotional violence is a dumb thing to do.
Sure. Innocent dumb questions, like, “Where did you put the screwdriver…oh, never mind, I found it.” Or simply questions to which the answer can more easily be found by a moment’s research than by asking on a general topics BBS. “Who was the Second President of the U.S.?” Or questions for which there can be no proper answer. “Is God made of Love?”
Asking a question after the teacher just gave the answer makes it a dumb question. Asking the same question after a teacher gives the answer again should be grounds for summary execution.
I had a professor in grad school who said he would not answer stupid questions. He identified stupid questions as those prefaced by the phrase “I know this is a stupid question” or variants thereof. If you had stupid questions, you could take them to the TA (Teaching Assistant).
And I agree with the notion that if the question has just been answered, it’s pretty dumb (and annoying).
But as an employee of a retail establishment, I do my best to make people not feel stupid when they ask easy, obvious questions. Or for the location of things which are embarassingly close to hand.
First of all, I never know how much previous exposure to the store someone has.
And we just rearranged things a few months ago.
But mostly, I love being able to provide a simple, clear, affirmative answer to a question. And so, frequently asked questions generally fit the bill.
What I hate is people who refuse to believe the answer I tell them.
I’m almost always right, but even when I’m wrong, I wish they’d just accept my answer and go away.
And that is the essential point - you cannot know what you don’t know.
Yes there are stupid people who are lazy and cannot be bothered to think through their question. However we are better to err on the side of caution and give them the benefit of the doubt. The beautiful example of Cecil considering the weight of a shadow made me laugh until I realised the questioner was genuine, polite, and really didn’t know.
Ah! You’re right! I was thinking, instead, of the brat who does it intentionally, knowing it’s irritating. But the brighter-than-average kid who asks, out of true curiosity and wonder… There, you are right as rain; that kid bears the soul of philosophy!
I did some teaching for a couple of years* and encouraged my students to ask questions profusely, because “there are no stupid questions.” It is very common for people to sit on perfectly good questions because they think they might sound stupid, but in almost all cases there are multiple people who want to know the same thing. Actually, there are stupid questions, but if you are teaching you have to be respectful of each and every sincerely asked question, and create an environment where people feel free to ask whatever they want without embarrassment.
The stupid questions are the ones that someone made zero effort to think about before asking. But just because the answer is known to or even obvious to most people doesn’t in itself make the question stupid. However, something like “how do they get the seeds inside the apples” if you’re older than 8 is probably stupid.
*Teaching design and programming to adult IT professionals employed by my company.
In that case every question asked in GQ is a dumb question since they could nearly all be answered with the use of a dictionary, Google, taking a class, or reading a book.
It’s possible he was whooshing you. “What is mulch?” is a running gag in comicsby Sergio Aragonés.
If you knew the meme you would have replied thusly:* “Mulching is a process of inbred fertilization which employs certain decomposed organic materials-- including, but not limited to animal sediment-- to blanket an area in which vegetation is desired. The procedure enriches the soil for stimulated plant development while, at the same time, preventing erosion and decreasing the evaporation of moisture from the ground.”*
