It’s called a bull, dude

There have been many times in my life where I have witnessed events that combat the old saying “There is no such thing as a stupid question.”. I have heard stupid questions from smart people, I have heard stupid questions from stupid people. Stupid questions don’t inherintly mean the asker is dumb however. Freshman year I was walking through the halls near what is now Mr. Anderson’s room. There used to be a painting on the wall of a farm and a bunch of cows. When we were walking by my friend stopped, looked at the wall with a puzzled look and asked with the most serious face, “You know, how come I’ve never seen a male cow before?” It took me a second to proccess this, and then I looked back and said, “We call them bulls.” He took a second, then the lightbulb lit up and he laughed. This person isn’t an overall stupid person, but the question itself was a lapse in judgment at the least, a dumb question at most. Junior year in Earth science class this same freind from the previous story asked a question that still baffles me to this day. The teachers was telling us the reasons behind why Pluto was no longer concidered a planet. It has an orbit that sometimes places it between Neptune and Uranus, and sometimes behind Neptune. When the teacher told us that Pluto was roughly the size of our moon, this person held up their hand, and asked “If the moon and pluto are the same size, how come pluto isn’t a planet but the moon still is?” The class went silent for a solid five seconds. I slowly turned around and broke the news to him, to which denied. He fought on the stance that the moon was actually a planet, and would not be swayed. Again, this person isn’t a stupid person, but the question asked certianly was.

The next question is an excusable one, because at the point in life we were in, we weren’t expected to know all about the subject. During freshman health class, we were learning about the human body. When shown a diagram of a female reproductive system, one of my friends raised their hand and asked “How come it doesn’t show the prostate on here?”. My entire friend group had to surpress laughter to keep his embarresment to a minimum. It was shortly explained to him that women do not, in fact, have a prostate, and that was the end of that. The thing about questions is that there is (almost) always a reason behind asking them, The person wants to know more, wants to find a solution to a problem, or get rid of some confusion. Some will say that is the reason that there is no such thing as a stupid question, because the asker just wants to be enlightened. I, once again, whole-heartedly disagree. Just because someone wants to know more, it does not entitle them to a safe barrier against judgement. If a question is stupid, it is stupid, no matter what kind of philisophical, tender approach you try to spin it with. This isn’t to say that dumb questions are not important however. The asker does in fact learn something, and that is a thing of great value.

A stupid question can be worth it if a correction can be made, or a misconception fixed. My friend learned that a male cow is a bull, and that the moon is NOT a planet. My other friend learned a little bit more about the human body. The questions asked might not have been intelligent, but that doesn’t take away the meaning or importance behind them. In learning from the stupid questions you’ve asked in the past, you might take innitiative to look into something more before you try talking to people about it, or not hold unstable statements so tightly and argue that an incorrect fact is true. We have all asked stupid questions before, I am certainly guilty of it. However stupid, or dumb your question is, it’s just important to learn from it.