# What is the singlemost useless thing you learned in school? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 7, 2022, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434 "2022-04-07T02:31:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/242 "2022-04-13T18:02:43Z")
I remember this part of his autobiography. It was his response to a non-scientist asserting that scientists have an inferior sense of beauty. Funny, for a person limited in their understanding of the world (by not understanding science and presumably also, math) to insist their own sense of beauty is superior, is a bit silly. Being able to appreciate beauty on multiple levels is one of the best things about life, period. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/243 "2022-04-13T20:20:01Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > He was not a fan of ‘memorisation’. It is however kind of intrinsic to learning biology. Frankly if you’re not good at brute memorization you’re not likely to do all that great in many/most biology classes. Particularly at the undergrad level, but really the knock-on effects carry on afterwards. There is a very large amount of information you need to have at your fingertips before you can then proceed to synthesize and analyze. > [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > I love Richard Feynman but not every job has the same skill set as physics. You can learn medicine from first principles, but you can’t practice medicine from first principles. Right. It does a surgeon little good if he knows where to look up how the architecture of a spleen looks like, but doesn’t have that information in his organic data bank. ETA: I was a double major in biology and history in college, which a number of people I have met have found an odd pairing. But aside from just being the two big areas of my personal interests, having a good memory helped me in both 😉. ---
**Author:** ![Sooner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sooner/32/7875_2.png) [@Sooner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sooner)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/244 "2022-04-13T20:37:00Z")
To program in Fortran using a card punch machine. Long after either was very useful. Seemed to be a weird sort of hazing by the university. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/245 "2022-04-13T20:46:28Z")
If so, it was unintentional. My FORTRAN programming on cards was processed on a CDC 3300, with magnetic core memory. I don’t think it supported any other means of I/O. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/246 "2022-04-13T20:48:33Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Frankly if you’re not good at brute memorization you’re not likely to do all that great in many/most biology classes. Particularly at the undergrad level, but really the knock-on effects carry on afterwards. There is a very large amount of information you need to have at your fingertips before you can then proceed to synthesize and analyze. I almost became a doctor, mostly because I could memorize large chunks of facts. So I aced all my HS/college biology and other science classes. The minute I decided not to go to med school, my brain jettisoned most of the stuff I’d memorized. Though enough stayed in that I can follow my medical friends’ conversations. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/247 "2022-04-13T21:08:51Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Later, I would go on to learn Russian. Our lessons did include grammar and mechanics, but there was a great emphasis on conversational Russian, to the point where at least one hour a week was devoted to nothing but conversation. Any topic was fine, as long as you spoke Russian, and our teacher was there to help if we got stuck. We made plenty of errors, I’m sure, but the teacher didn’t interrupt as long as we made sense to her. I studied Russian when I was in high school, but at UCLA. I took another year once I got to actually be a UCLA student, and the teacher said in Russia, most people just mumble their diclensions in conversational speech. I felt duped! Well, not really. Once standing in line to get into The Troubadour this guy ahead of us was planning a trip to Moscow and wanted me to teach him how to say “beautiful woman” in Russian. The things that one remembers… ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/248 "2022-04-14T05:10:26Z")
Memorization of long Shakespearean monologs. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/249 "2022-04-14T15:11:17Z")
Yeah. I had to memorize Marc Antony’s eulogy from _Julius Caesar_ and recite it. Muffed one word and got a C. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/250 "2022-04-14T15:53:26Z")
It’s “lend me your **ears** ” ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/251 "2022-04-14T17:27:40Z")
“I come to bury Caesar, not to raise him” ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/252 "2022-04-14T18:00:30Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And someone’s mention of guest speakers dislodged a memory: In middle school, we had an assembly with a black supremacist activist who claimed that Jesus was black. His evidence? A passage from the Gospels that described his hair as being “like wool”. Even at the time, I knew that was nonsense, because despite me being white, I had hair woolier than any of my black classmates. Later, I learned that he wasn’t even quoting the passage accurately, but left off a word: Jesus’s hair was described as being white like wool. Nitpick - the passage where Jesus had white hair is Revelation ([Ch 1 v14](https://biblehub.com/niv/revelation/1.htm)), not the Gospels. Of course, Jesus was Indian. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/8tw7LIykvBw/hqdefault.jpg "Goodness gracious me - Christianity is Indian") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tw7LIykvBw) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/253 "2022-04-14T18:23:59Z")
Isn’ that “…not to braise him” ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/254 "2022-04-14T18:41:52Z")
The **Dewey Decimal System** for locating a book in a library. I didn’t use it then or later. It was just for the librarians themselves to place the books on the shelves, it helped no one else. The science books are over here, look around, the history books are here, fiction in that area, etc. I mean, some kind or sorting method would be useful for librarians but that doesn’t translate into usefulness for others. [Dewey Decimal Classification - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification) ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/255 "2022-04-14T18:48:37Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > I mean, some kind or sorting method would be useful for librarians but that doesn’t translate into usefulness for others. Imagine that librarians sorted books by weight. Simple to implement, 1) weigh the book, 2) put in appropriate spot. By comparison, Dewey Decimal is very useful. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/256 "2022-04-14T18:57:01Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > it helped no one else Huh? Without it (or some other similar system, like Library of Congress), how would you find the books you were interested in? ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/257 "2022-04-14T19:33:19Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > I mean, some kind or sorting method would be useful for librarians but that doesn’t translate into usefulness for others. Over the course of my undergraduate studies, I did research in more than one library. In each facility, I knew exactly where I needed to go to find the books I was looking for at the time. Did the system make perfect sense? Heavens, no. But grouping them by classes certainly made more sense than by author or title. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/258 "2022-04-14T20:30:04Z")
“Who, you all know, are horrible men.” “Who, you all know, are cannibal men.” “Who, you all know, are gonorrhoeal men.” Clearly I am not bringing much to the table here… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/259 "2022-04-14T20:57:36Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Nitpick - the passage where Jesus had white hair is Revelation ([Ch 1 v14](https://biblehub.com/niv/revelation/1.htm)), not the Gospels. Ah, indeed, I had it mixed up with [Mark 9](https://biblehub.com/bsb/mark/9.htm), but that just talks about his clothes, not Jesus himself. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434/260 "2022-04-14T21:14:52Z")
Well, I didn’t recognise the quote so I looked it up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-singlemost-useless-thing-you-learned-in-school/962434.md?page=12)