# Most Ignorant Thing You've Ever Heard **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 7, 2007, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196 "2007-02-07T11:44:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/241 "2007-02-09T17:56:25Z")
[QUOTE=Mindfield] Up from which is a category I call “Weapons-grade stupidity” for its vast capability to destroy brain cells. [snip] Him: “FALSE is a constant integer with a value of 1.” Me: “Uh … what?” Him: “FALSE is a const—” Me: “Wait. You redefined FALSE?” Him: “Is that bad?” :smack: :smack: :smack: Okay, so probably only programmers will get that, but it was still award-winning stupidity. [/QUOTE] I’ve only ever done stuff like that **on purpose**. And in an obscure #include file… 😃 Yeah, I yanked a few chains when I was younger… ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/242 "2007-02-09T18:33:21Z")
[QUOTE=pestie] It’s been a long time since I posted on the Straight Dope, but hey, no better time than the present to jump back in. This can’t be the _most_ ignorant thing I’ve heard, but it’s up there on the stupidity scale. I had a health teacher in middle school who was also a gym teacher. In retrospect, he reminds me a lot of “Mr. Buzzcut” from _Beavis & Butt-head_. He said something one day to the effect of, “Your lungs only absorb 19% of the oxygen from each breath you take. So those professional baseball players who suck down pure oxygen from tanks aren’t doing any good, 'cause they’re still only getting 19%!” I guess I should just be grateful that he wasn’t a math teacher. [/QUOTE] Your logic is flawed. If people only absorb 19% of the oxygen they breathe in, then breathing in pure oxygen will still result in greater oxygen reaching the lungs, because 19% of the entire volume of air breathed in is more than 19% of a percentage of the air breathed in. I have no reason to think the gym teacher was right, but your objection is specious. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/243 "2007-02-09T19:14:05Z")
[QUOTE=bluethree] And that reminds me of a news broadcast or documentary I saw a few years ago where they were interviewing teenaged (probably) Arab madrasa students. The interviewer told them that there is a twenty-five million dollar reward for Osama bin Ladin, and asking them if they knew what they could buy with twenty-five mil. One young guy said, “I don’t know…a car?” [/QUOTE] I read a similar story to that, where they talked to a guy who worked as a street vendor, selling balloons. He said that, if he got the money, he’d spend it on keeping his business going. The reporter asked him how many balloons he though he could buy for a million dollars. The guy thought for a second, and then said, “A thousand?” ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/244 "2007-02-09T19:27:17Z")
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool] Your logic is flawed. If people only absorb 19% of the oxygen they breathe in, then breathing in pure oxygen will still result in greater oxygen reaching the lungs, because 19% of the entire volume of air breathed in is more than 19% of a percentage of the air breathed in. I have no reason to think the gym teacher was right, but your objection is specious. [/QUOTE] Dude, you’re saying exactly what **pestie** was saying. The gym teacher was the one who thought that 19% of 20% is the same amount as 19% of 100%. Again, the merits of sucking down pure O[sub]2[/sub] for someone with a healthy set of lungs (like NBA players,) might be sound or they might not be (though from what I understand, it’s not that sound. Healthy lungs get just about all the O[sub]2[/sub] they need from the air, it’s the heart that ultimately determines how well your body stays oxygenated,) but if it isn’t sound, then it’s not for the reason the gym teacher said, since that makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/245 "2007-02-09T19:28:50Z")
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool] Your logic is flawed. If people only absorb 19% of the oxygen they breathe in, then breathing in pure oxygen will still result in greater oxygen reaching the lungs, because 19% of the entire volume of air breathed in is more than 19% of a percentage of the air breathed in. I have no reason to think the gym teacher was right, but your objection is specious. [/QUOTE] I think that was **pestie** ’s point, wasn’t it? Well, at least poster editing means I can now apologize for simul-posts in the same post. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/246 "2007-02-09T19:47:26Z")
[QUOTE=Kricket] He told her he was an engineer and I piped up with “yeah he gets the neat job of driving the trains and if he breaks one my husband has to fix it” [/QUOTE] Heh. I love my sister dearly, but she seldom gets accused of being the sharpest spoon in the drawer. When we were kids sitting around the dinner table, we were discussing kitchen utensils for some reason. My mother mentioned that she’d love to get an electric wok. Sis: What’s that? Me: You know those conveyor belts like they have on The Jetsons? One of those. Sis: Oh, OK. Mom: Honey, he’s joking. It’s a Chinese frying pan. You use it to make Chinese food. Sis: Oh, I get it. The conversation continued, the subject changed, and about 5 minutes later… Sis: Wait, you mean for Snooky? (Snooky was our dog.) ---
**Author:** ![sperry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@sperry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sperry)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/247 "2007-02-09T20:30:14Z")
I just have to share this one from a college graduate: > [@](#): > > Why would you read the book if you can watch the movie? I don’t know where to start. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/248 "2007-02-09T20:30:19Z")
[QUOTE=Mindfield] Up from which is a category I call “Weapons-grade stupidity” for its vast capability to destroy brain cells. [/QUOTE] I’ve referred to a kind of stupidity as ‘brain poison’ based on an analogy to nuclear power - and then simplified it to simply ‘boron.’ In nuclear parlance a poison is any material which absorbs a neutron without releasing any more neutrons. A person who is a ‘brain poison’ absorbs ideas without ever releasing any of their own. Since boron is a common nuclear poison it always worked for me to extend that label to people. Yes, most people who hear me use the term have no idea what I mean, but it amuses me. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/249 "2007-02-09T20:31:39Z")
A friend of mine spent three and a half years in Fairbanks, Alaska, while her husband was stationed there as an Airforce meteorologist. His next station was San Antonio, Texas. She went to the local DMV to get a Texas driver’s license and was told she had to take a battery of written tests, plus a driving test and some other stuff. When she asked why she was told that “driver’s licenses from other countries were not acceptable to a person getting a new license in Texas.” The clerk would not be convinced that Alaska wasn’t a foreign country. My friend got her to call her supervisor, who was also a little suspicious, but eventually relented and let her get a new license without all the folderol. ---
**Author:** ![Butterscotch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Butterscotch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butterscotch)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/250 "2007-02-09T20:34:21Z")
My middle school English teacher (evil old bag, long story) did a lesson on the usage of the apostrophe: You can’t go wrong if you always put it directly above the ‘s’. That covers everything. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/251 "2007-02-09T20:44:11Z")
[QUOTE=Butterscotch] My middle school English teacher (evil old bag, long story) did a lesson on the usage of the apostrophe: You can’t go wrong if you always put it directly above the ‘s’. That covers everything. [/QUOTE] I hope the end of the long story goes, “and when the camels at the zoo saw her adding an apostrophe to the sign on their pen, they broke out and trampled her to death.” Or something like that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/252 "2007-02-09T20:53:46Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Well, at least poster editing means I can now apologize for simul-posts in the same post. :smack: [/QUOTE] Heh. If only it were still possible to edit **Max** ’s post. I read it four times, trying to work out what subtle detail I was missing. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/253 "2007-02-09T21:13:55Z")
[QUOTE=Dangerosa] We brought our son home at six months from South Korea (well, actually, he was delivered to us). I was arranging daycare for him before he arrived. The daycare woman said “But how will you communicate with him.” “Huh” “Well, he won’t speak English.” [/QUOTE] This makes a little sense to me, in that he may have learned to hear Korean words and have some understanding of them? Or is six months too young for that? [I guess it’s on the beginning edge.](http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9903/18/t_t/baby.talk/index.html?eref=sitesearch) ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/254 "2007-02-09T22:49:06Z")
WTF does d&r mean? > [@Mindfield](#): > > Me: “Wait. You redefined FALSE?” > Him: “Is that bad?” :eek: This guy has a _degree_? > [@tdn](#): > > I love my sister dearly, but she seldom gets accused of being the sharpest spoon in the drawer. The rest of the spoons can’t be any sharper, can they? They’re spoons! On a related note, someone once got really irritated with me–he’s one of these guys who gets angry and loses all rationality but still wants to deliver a verbal smackdown–and blurted out, “Well, you’ve never been the smartest tool in the shed!” 😃 > [@OtakuLoki](#): > > I’ve referred to a kind of stupidity as ‘brain poison’ based on an analogy to nuclear power - and then simplified it to simply ‘boron.’ … > Yes, most people who hear me use the term have no idea what I mean, but it amuses me. Similarly, I like to count bogons and label certain people as “bogon emitters”. In hacker (the classical definition, not the sensationalist journalism one) parlance, the bogon is the SI unit of bogosity, and the bogus-ness of ridiculous ideas can be measured in bogons. > [@gigi](#): > > This makes a little sense to me, in that he may have learned to hear Korean words and have some understanding of them? Or is six months too young for that? I guess it’s on the beginning edge. Does it really matter? The child would quite obviously have been young enough to learn English natively and develop an American accent. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/255 "2007-02-09T22:50:25Z")
Some local talk radio station up here had some lady on substituting as a guest host along with another guy. They were making small talk about what kind of music they like. She commented that she was really into “Christian” music. He asked her if she always listened to “Christian” music and she said “no, just recently since I’ve really gotten into Christianity and have become a Christian”. He asked her what she was before and she said she grew up Catholic but she didn’t like it and preferred being a Christian. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/256 "2007-02-09T22:54:23Z")
[QUOTE=fetus] WTF does d&r mean? [/QUOTE] Duck and Run **Hampshire** , you may not be aware that there are large segments of the fundamentalist Christian community that do not believe Catholicism is part of Christianity. I don’t agree with how they came to this conclusion, but it’s by no means unique to this woman’s thinking. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/257 "2007-02-09T23:27:10Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd] Heh. If only it were still possible to edit **Max** ’s post. I read it four times, trying to work out what subtle detail I was missing. :smack: [/QUOTE] Tell me about it. Oh well. At least my post didn’t contain any misspelled words. That I know of 🙂 > [@Kricket](#): > > He told her he was an engineer and I piped up with “yeah he gets the neat job of driving the trains and if he breaks one my husband has to fix it” I don’t get it. What’s so implausible about someone in the army driving a train? Is it just that “engineer” can mean different things in different contexts? ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/258 "2007-02-09T23:38:53Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > He asked her what she was before and she said she grew up Catholic but she didn’t like it and preferred being a Christian. I hear this from all kinds of Christians (and Catholics 😉 ), especially in/from the south. It blows my mind. It’s not so much that they actually don’t believe Catholicism is part of Christianity, they’re just so ignorant that they see the two things as being mutually exclusive. Most of these people don’t know what the word Protestant means and will tell you they’re “you know, Christian” if you ask them what branch of Christianity they belong to. You can see their brain hurts and they’re unable to respond if you try to dig any deeper. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/259 "2007-02-09T23:49:32Z")
> [@](#): > > ur 3rd grade teacher taught it to us the same way, except a bit more morbidly. She told us to imagine an alligator’s mouth deciding which child to eat. Obviously the alligator would choose the fatter child. Thinking back, she was one of my favorite teachers, although I never could figure out why. Apparently, I appreciated her sense of humor. I am indebt to your 3rd grade teacher for making things easier to explain for me My SIL use to be a veritable font of Ignorance, but a combination of both of us learning we cannot discuss Religion/Politics/Gay/A most everything else has ended the treasure trove of jaw dropping stupidity that this teacher with a masters in Education. Also, Prozac has really put a shield around me to protect me from the sheer stupidity that exists in her. **Exhibit A:** When she was pregnant with her daughter she use to buckle the seat belt over the TOP part of her belly. That would be the waist band part, not the shoulder band. This would be very very bad if she were in an accident. Having just had a baby myself, and absolutely up-to- here- with the Impending Arrival of the World’s Most Perfect Baby, I was rather cranky. “Ummm, what are you doing?” “Keeping \*the baby \* safe” “Uh, you realize that if you have an accident, that band will push downward on your belly and probably cause you to miscarry instantly or at least hemmorage to death from internal bleeding.” (Dazed look in her eyes, I swear to god., told me she had never thought of the mechanics and safety of it all.) " Look, it goes Hip bone to hip bone snugly to protect you and the baby." (This is also a woman who would drive her car the final 3miles ( dirt road) with **The baby** on her lap. All the neighbors witnessed this and were in seizures, as one could imagine. Can I mention this child took $13K to conceive. I was out for a bike ride with my son in a trailer behind and ran into her doing this DUMBASS thing with _Her Baby_ and (again, I was cranky as all hell and I tend to be whenever she is in my site, said, " If I had my cell phone on me, I’d call the cops on you. " More from her: **Gay Related** Gays choose to be gay.\*\* And the _Piece de Resistance_ which made me write her off mentally as a waste of time was we were watching TV and a commerical for something came on that featured monkeys all jibber jabbering at each other like real people and oook oooking before the product was flashed on screen. It was a funny commerical . We all laughed and she says, " Oh, I am so glad I’m not descended from them." and I shot back, " I’m so glad I am." It was her ignorance at turned me into a non-christian. I really should send her a thank you note. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196/260 "2007-02-09T23:50:53Z")
I’ve had a similar experience with people claiming to be Buddhist. Dumbass: Oh, I’m a Buddhist you see. Me: Really, that’s nice, what kind? Dumbass: … Honestly, I don’t really even know myself what the doctrinal differences between the various sects of Buddhism are, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a “Buddhist” who had an answer for me. Come on, guys, look it up on Wikipedia and pick one, it doesn’t take much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-ignorant-thing-youve-ever-heard/391196.md?page=14)