I learned early not to be embarrassed by answering "I don't Know". Al

I learned early not to be embarrassed by answering, "I don't know"... and also to not be embarrassed by asking any question for which I didn't have an answer!

The only way we can expand our knowledge is by asking and finding the answers! Our kennel tagline reads... Knowledge Breeds Success... and we have found this to be the truest of statements! Without the in depth knowledge of what we were doing, we never would have had such wonderful success!

I'm way beyond the years of schooling... I have 3 grandchildren... and I find myself constantly learning new things, asking more questions, studying the answers, finding logical conclusions, and adding to what I already know! It's a lifelong, never ending process!

With the advent of the internet, I've learned to take everything with a grain of salt, use my common sense, and find several sources from which to form my opinions. Not everything written is the gospel truth, and sometimes, we have to wade through a lot of misinformation to find that truth.

They say that the only dumb question is the one that isn't asked... and I say that it's the smart person who keeps asking and keeps learning!

Questions aren't asked in a vacuum, and their value or stupidity depends on a variety of contextual variables. Because of these contextual variables I think that, like beauty, the stupidity of a question is in the eye of the beholder. Given Ron's obvious mental acuity and sophisticated thought process, if he asked me when (the real) Santa is scheduled to bring his presents, I would consider that a stupid question.

There are no stupid questions? In all seriousness, I believe that statement might have been true for a short time when we were in our formative years and we were conversing with a scary big person and our confidence a little low. Teachers, parents, others, put this statement to use when they want to get someone over that hump and encourage them to participate in a discussion. Now, itÂs simply turned into a one-size-fits-all cliché. As adults, it is a core expectation that we select our questions more wisely.

Actually, to ask any question w/o aforethought, can even be irresponsible. With the wave generated by a single stupid question, one person can commission and waste the resources of many others as they seek an answer that doesnÂt exist, or doesnÂt matter.

If an adult asks "Why do things keep changing?" should we be glad for the opportunity to expand endlessly, or should we consider it a stupid question and just reply "That's the way things are?" Every statement made and every question asked, offers the opportunity to expand and share knowledge, so stupid questions don't have the corner on that market. Are we wrong in not wasting our resources on questions like this?

How/why does the cliché, "There are no stupid questions," live on? Well, too many people in the position of leadership repeat this cliché in attempt to make people feel "comfortable" and to encourage them to ask any question  at any time. You'll often find these very same leaders lamenting that their people focus on the wrong things and that they are not getting the results wanted or required, not even realizing that the source of their chagrin is their own encouragement of questions of any type.

Asking the same questions framed in different phraseology, questions there is no answer to - and even if you could speculate an answer, it would add no value to the situation, questions that imply blame and fly in the face of personal accountability as a concept, and questions that are focused on things outside of the control of the individual are a few places I would look for suspects that fit the 'stupid' category.
We lied to (the collective) you to help you when you were little ..... about there being no stupid questions ....... just as we lied about a little man in your chimney at Christmas time and about a certain rabbit in the spring. Help us correct the situation and start spreading the truth about stupid questions instead. There really are very stupid questions.

Can I be excused now?

Al

Seems to me that many things are on a continuum. Critical thinking, or rather the ability to employ it, is one such continuum. We rarely help others to learn or employ critical thinking skills. Critical thinking skills are required in order to ask effective questions. This, I think, is what Al is getting at.

But, on a continuum, we all have to work our way from one end to the other. Through luck, hard work, genetics or whatever, some of us get closer to the "effective" end of the continuum more quickly than others. I'd suggest that there are not stupid questions in the context of one person's capability to think critically. A person may not have moved very far through the continuum, so cannot be expected to ask the "right" question. It's what happens next that predicates if the situation makes what follows "stupid." Helping someone learn to ask the "right" questions to get helpful answers is what Al wants leaders and other people to do, if I am hearing him correctly.

In terms of asking the types of questions listed in Al's list of potential "stupid" suspects, I'd guess that this is also a continuum, but this time of personal growth regarding effective communication or some such. Some of us have not yet traversed very far down that road. We do not realize what we're doing when we ask questions that imply blame or add no value or potentially cause hurt or pain to someone. Is that to say the questions aren't stupid? No, but maybe the person is unable to ask it differently at this time in his/her life. Maybe they will never be able to ask the questions differently.

As Al said, those who hear the question have some responsibility to help guide the situation and questioner so that value is obtained.

Of course, I reserve my right to think critically about this at a future date and change everything I've said ;-) assuming future reflection, additional knowledge, and personal growth.

Most leaders and teachers are able to second guess most of the truly stupid questions and supply the information the person actually needs to progress in their thinking (which very often is not the answer to the question) and to be better able to ask the next question.

I've answered many thousands of garden related questions on GW and via email, and I have to say that the number of questions I have seen that I personally consider stupid or even close to stupid is extremely low, almost non-existent. This is because I attribute the questions that are asked over and over again, or those that are asked poorly to ignorance (this in the classic sense - nothing derogatory in the term). The people asking the questions may not have enough of the puzzle to ask them in a perfectly erudite form, but that doesn't matter; practically everyone who participates on this forum LOVES to help and doesn't think twice about how a question is phrased. Often, we do second guess answers and use some questions as springboards to expand into other areas we know will be helpful to the petitioner.

Part of the resistance to admitting or agreeing there actually are stupid questions comes from the fact that 'stupid' goes wanting in the area of political correctness (potential damage to the id), and to assess a question as stupid carries the connotation that the person asking it just might be stupid ("lacking or marked by lack of intellectual acuity").

I really think that if we delineate between ignorance in the classic sense and actual stupidity, we can allow that there are questions that arise out of classic ignorance, which LO touched on, but there are also questions that arise out of stupidity, which is the point I initially pressed into service. Just as we can be ignorant (all of us are in areas) and ask good questions, we can also be scholarly and ask stupid questions.

Al

It's interesting that we're constructing the situation as though all questions had answers someone (maybe the "leader") already knows. If that's the case, the idea that these questions can be sorted into good and bad questions by someone with more advanced knowledge makes perfect sense.

On the other hand, if you think that there are more questions out there to which we don't know the answers than those to which we do, and, further, that we don't necessarily know which ones those are, then that changes things. There are still, theoretically, stupid questions, but we can't a priori know which ones they are.

I remember reading that Richard Feynman attributed much of his success in new fields to asking one simple question after another until he got to one that hadn't yet been asked.

By that light, we could argue that the only useless question is a question which does not provoke the person hearing it to reexamine what he or she knows. By that definition, the power to render a question useful or stupid lies not with the asker but with the listener.

Just a thought. I can never resist a philosophical tangent :-)

Anne

Unless I missed something important, which is entirely possible, ;o) I think there's a logical flaw in the argument that because RF asked a series of simple questions until he found one not yet asked, we can leap to the idea the only useless questions are those that don't provoke reexamination. Even if that single question brought him success, he may well have asked countless useless or even stupid questions along the way if his only goal was to find one question not yet asked ...... also a real possibility, even if that wasn't his goal.

I think we need to consider the OP simply stated there ARE no stupid questions. If someone asks me, "If I marry my dog, do you think it will gross out the attendees if I kiss her when we're pronounced man and beast?", I consider that both a stupid and useless question that certainly doesn't provoke me into reexamining anything other than how I came to be associated with the person asking the question.

I do agree with the premise, and don't think there was ever a doubt, that the person most likely to judge a question as useless or stupid would be someone listening to the question.

If I asked "Is it ok if I go to bed now?", I think we might consider that a good question to rest my case on .... because I'm already gone. ;o)

Al

Of course there are stupid questions,at least in the mind of the person being asked. But like everything else stupidity is relative. The real issue is how do deal with the question and the questioner. The context of the whole thing will determine a lot about the way it is handled. In the context of this forum we are often confronted with questions from people who have almost no background or knowledge of science or practical horticulture. In that case the only proper thing is to try to give the best simple answer that you can in a clear and polite way.

When I was teaching, the context was different. There we were trying to impart knowledge at more than one level. We wanted to get biological information into the head of the student and we also wanted to teach them how to be a scholar, how to teach themselves. In that situation I often would answer a question with a question. So I would ask, "well when you read the chapter in the text what did it have to say on the matter"? Usually the answer was, "I haven't read the text yet". My answer was the obvious, "after you have read the text, if you still have questions I will be happy to help you find an answer".

We cannot indulge in this deeper search on this forum. It is not designed for a Socratic approach. We choose to answer those questions we think we can or are willing to do and choose to ignore others as too frivilous or "stupid" but the asker never knows that you thought it was stupid. If I choose to answer a question it is because I think I know the answer and it is a question worth answering. If I think the question is stupid I don't answer it. It is as simple as that. Jack

Nicely said.

Al

If we take common sense out of the equation, stupid question will always exist... more so than they do now. I base my statement of "the only stupid question is the one that hasn't been asked" on the premise that as we grow, we tend to inject more common sense in our asking.

The absolute statement that "stupid questions do exist" goes without saying... but as adults, we should be able to know the difference between a dumb question, and one that has merit.

Will my tropical plants survive if I leave them out all winter?..:-)

"Yes, Mike. The colder, the better." I say with a straight face. ;-)

lololo......God...:-). Mines not straight!

Great post. Never stop asking questions. Rarely do I encounter a person who is truly curious about the world.

ÂOne who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever. -Chinese proverb

ÂWhy is it that I have never met a dull 6-year old, and I have never met an interesting 16-year old? -Gore Vidal

ÂSomewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.' -Carl Sagan
ÂFor me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.' -Carl Sagan

OK, I'll play the quote game....

"Ecology is the branch of biology that asks what then" Garrett Hardin

"The rate of the development of science is not the rate at which you make observations alone but much more important the rate at which you make new things to test." Richard Feynman

There is one stupid question that sits on top and it sits on top every hour of every day. That question is the one that doesn't get asked. Why some people don't ask questions ? I don't have an ansew for that. Why I don't ask silly questions? Cause don't wont get me an answew. I'd rather embarrass myself with a " silly question " than to suffer the results of an error.
As for them "off the wall answers" some do get from time to time to same silly question requires more asking of same silly question. Somewhere in this time line all the silly questions seem to just go away as we find ourselves just talking and learning from each outher.
Ask your mom and she tells you ask your dad, ask him and he says ask mom. These off the wall responces are a built in survival instinct in all of us. It is not to our best manners to let a child depend on only one person to survive. Why ? We as a species would be extinct by now.
Heres a silly question.
What does filterd sun light mean ? I don't need an answer however I am asking cause maybe someone else is just afraid to ask. ASSUME (Nice topic
Wes

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts which have helped my own mixed feelings on this question to crystallize somewhat. To summarise, if I may.

1. History and human progress appear to side with questions, questionings and the enquiring mind.
2. The description of a question is a subjective adjective thought up by the "questionee". Sometimes this adjective is extrapolated to the questioner. I first observed this phenomenon with smoking and the smoker.
3. The consensus is that we should all 'err' on the side of 'more questions' rather than 'no question'.
4. There is an adage to support each point of view, even contradictory points of view. Consider "Look before you leap!" and "He who hesitates is lost".
5. The pun is a witty art form; it is also invariably funny.
   This is not an exhaustive list and certainly not meant to shut down the thread.

"Expect the worst, and you'll never be disappointed."

I don't know how that fits in... it's all I could think of at the moment! ;-)

What if someone doesn't agree ? do we just give up ?
let live ? let die? respect means to surrender all our efforts ? how often do we see them ? what are we looking at ?
Food for thought How much do you like to eat ?

same today as yesterday so be it for tomorrow as well there are no original thoughts or ideas in my head.

to deep ?
Wes

Not too deep... just different. Your style takes a bit of thinking, but that's a good thing.

When it comes to food for thought, I have a good appetite. I never feel too full. ;-)

When you hear just hear..when you see just see... when you feel just feel .... when you know just know..
Buddah
Nothing is original I already told you that. Why you jump in hole ?

Am I asking a stupid question by asking what the heck is being dicussed here in simple english? Or is it me that most is not making sense?

If it is, then my IQ must be very low and I just asked a stupid question.....:-(

Mike.

No, Mike... I'm having the same problem you're having. I think the issue may actually be caused by a translator program. And if that isn't the case, then I don't know what to think!

Some programs that translate other languages into English aren't very good at it... and I'm sure they aren't very good at translating the other way around, either.

However, if Wes is English speaking, then I'm having a difficult time translating his version into what the rest of us speak!

Let's find out, shall we?

Which is it, Wes? Are you trying to confuse us on purpose? Or are you using a program to help you with English?

Sounds like Quiescent Mind talk. Do without doing, be without being....the Master Butcher seldom sharpens his blade....

Doesn't seem relevant to the original discussion, though...

Josh

I just cant understand what you already understand
A new no stupid questions what was that the point of the thread ? where we looking for one ? if so why ?

Don't drop that knife master butcher
Wes

You'd have to ask the thread starter... everyone else just chimed in with their own thoughts on the subject.

Waxing philosophical is one thing... but I'm just not sure I understand Confucius as a second language.

In the middle of the Gulf of Alaska on a cruise ship a passenger asked me "Are you on the ship?"

Sitting on the Seawall a tourist asked me "Why is it called Galveston Island?"

"Hello, Poison control may I help you?" "Is this poison control?"

I ordered a steak in a restaurant, rare, the waiter asked "How would you like your rare steak cooked?"

Yeah, there are plenty of stupid questions. And plenty of stupid people to ask them, and they all have a phone.
Tally HO!

Thank god for the disconnect button...

Can't use it, it's my job to talk to them.
And be nice. And not laugh out loud which is harder than you think.
Tally HO!

Oh my! I couldn't imagine! I would have to laugh! :-)

I saw a thread in weeds one day this summer showing a pic and asking for an ID the question was ID ugently needed as my 4 yr old daughter ate some of it I also need to know if it is toxic as her life maybe in danger.
If this question is not a stupid question it has to be a stupid action

Today I won a prize ( from a unknown to me contest I have even yet to enter) as they say on the phone machine I won this "prize"

DO I call the 1 800 number back that left this message at dinner time ? If I do ( which I won't) I'd ask them some stupid questions. Like whats my name ? where do I live ?

stupid questions yield stupid answers and sometimes stupid actions
Stupid is as stupid, does, keep it simple stupid doesnt always work
I once said out loud I don't know which way to go I guess that makes me lost.
Hey partner you look lost, are you ?

Why yes, yes I am maybe you could you help me ?

I wish I knew directions ! Howelse can I help you ?

ummmmmmm follow me ? ! Just to make sure I don't get lost again.
Wes

"What do you do with all those big frozen things in the winter?"

We finally figured out she meant the GLACIERS we had been sailing past for 2 weeks!

You'd be surprised how po'd people get when you laugh. Some people are laughing when they call you but others have absolutely no sense of humor.

I agree that posting on a website is a stupid place for and emergency!

Tally HO!

"What do you do with all those big frozen things in the winter?"

Here they simple thaw but none are ever that big, If we wait for Spring.( I think you get it )Personaly I keep some in a bucket.

The New England Motto: " If you don't like the weather hang around a minute it will change."
Surprises are also found sticking up on birthday cakes comes as no surpise when some still do burn both ends.