We all know that it's easy to give a dumb answer. But to ask a dumb
question is different. I'm a strong believer that all questions are
good questions, and that no question is a stupid question. I was
curious what would make for a 'dumb' question.

I assume it would have to be based on ignorant or foolish disregard
for moral or mortal consequences of posing the question (or as a
result of receiving the answer).

So my question: What is the dumbest question ever asked? (ie
historically, biblically, hypothetically, philosophically, etc)

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Request for Question Clarification by hailstorm-ga on 05 Nov 2002 21:59 PST

lxluthr,

Questions are, of course, for the purpose of learning new information.
Put more succinctly by the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, "The act
of asking; interrogation; inquiry; as, to examine by question and
answer." Meanwhile, a definition of dumb is "Conspicuously
unintelligent; stupid" From that, I would gather than a dumb question
is a pointless question, or a question for which the answer is already
known, thus negating the point of asking in the first place. The
longer and more complicated a question is, the less likely it is to be
"dumb" because of its complex nature. Therefore, the dumbest question
should be the shortest question for which an answer is already
available.

The six things people need to know about something are "who", "what",
"when", "why", "where" and "how". If something is said that requires
information about the people involved, asking "Who?" is not a dumb
question. Likewise for asking "When?" about time information, "Why?"
for reasons for an action, "Where?" to get specific place information,
or "How?" for details. But when a person tells you something, they are
already specifying what they are talking about. So asking "What?" to a
person is a pointless request to repeat information that has already
been provided.

Therefore, I would have to conclude that the dumbest question is the
one made popular by former wrestler Steve Austin last year: "What?"

Sites cited:

Dictionary definitions of "question" and "dumb"
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=question
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=dumb

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 05 Nov 2002 22:14 PST

I respectfully disagree with hailstorm-ga.  I think that "What?" in
that context is shorthand for "What did you say?  I don't think I
heard you correctly." or "What did you say?  You couldn't possibly
have said what I think I heard you say."  That might not be the
smartest question, but it doesn't seem to be the dumbest either.

I believe that saying to an upset gunman, "Why don't you shoot me
now?", would be much more dumb.  I suppose there must be some
real-life examples like that (sad, but true).

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Clarification of Question by lxluthr-ga on 05 Nov 2002 22:29 PST

hailstorm-ga: what?

heheh..  "What?" is truly the dumbest thing to say, but in the end
it's quite harmless, and people ask it all the time.

To be fair, people pose the question "What?" in order to create a
desired response in their audience (most often to have them repeat the
information in order to clarify or confirm it). So in truth people use
"What?" strategically in conversation, which makes it not so dumb
(when seen in that perspective).

To rephrase my question: What is an example of a question that has
serious (and obvious) consequences to it that outweigh the benefits of
posing the question. And are there any good quotes of such questions?

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Request for Question Clarification by hailstorm-ga on 06 Nov 2002 00:00 PST

You are both missing the point. Actually, you have both proved my
point, by thinking that the question "What?" is so dumb that the
person who says it could not have meant to actually say that, and
actually meant to say the question "What did you say?"

I still content that the question "What?" that actually means "What?"
is the dumbest question possible.

---

Clarification of Question by lxluthr-ga on 06 Nov 2002 06:44 PST

I guess I must agree hailstorm-ga. Your answer is both insightful and
logical.
But if am I to accept such an answer, I believe that the question
"Uh?" is a much dumber question (i'm referring to that sound some
American's make instead of saying "What?"). Not only does it sound
like a prehistoric grunt, but to my knowledge, it also doesn't
actually mean anything.

Although being Canadian, I'll admit that our expression "Eh?" doesn't
sound too bright either, and I'm sure other cultures and languages
have similarly dumb expressions.

But your point is clear and I would feel satisfied with that answer.

---

Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 06 Nov 2002 08:28 PST

What about "Say what?"?  Is that dumber than just plain "What?"?

Anyway, good work, hailstorm!

lxluthr,

This is a summary of what has been accepted as an answer here. :-)

Questions are, of course, for the purpose of learning new information.
Put more succinctly by the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, "The act
of asking; interrogation; inquiry; as, to examine by question and
answer." Meanwhile, a definition of dumb is "Conspicuously
inintelligent; stupid" From that, I would gather than a dumb question
is a pointless question, or a question for which the answer is already
known, thus negating the point of asking in the first place. The
longer and more complicated a question is, the less likely it is to be
"dumb" because of its complex nature. Therefore, the dumbest question
should be the shortest question for which an answer is already
available.
        
The six things people need to know about something are "who", "what",
"when", "why", "where" and "how". If something is said that requires
information about the people involved, asking "Who?" is not a dumb
question. Likewise for asking "When?" about time information, "Why?"
for reasons for an action, "Where?" to get specific place information,
or "How?" for details. But when a person tells you something, they are
already specifying what they are talking about. So asking "What?" to a
person is a pointless request to repeat information that has already
been provided.

You may argue that this is not a dumb question because people are
really asking "What did you say?" But I say that this is just your
brain compensating for the sheer dumbness of the question, and
automatically restating it as a courtesy to the questioner to
attribute to them a meaning that is less dumb. But "What?" in its form
of actually meaning "What?" is still a legitimate grammatical
construct in its own right, and for the purposes of the question of
dumb questions must be considered in that sense.

Therefore, I would have to conclude that the dumbest question is the
one made popular by former wrestler Steve Austin last year: "What?"
        
Sites cited: 
        
Dictionary definitions of "question" and "dumb" 
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=question 
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=dumb

Although not what I was expecting, it was still a very insightful and clever answer.

How about this?

At the secret trial of Tyler Kent in London in October 1940, a 'coded
letter' was introduced as evidence, and a cryptographic expert from
the Government Code and Cipher School (Hugh Foss) testified that he
had 'worked it out'.

Kent's Counsel then cross-examined Foss and asked the dumbest question
imaginable:

"Were you able to make us of telepathy when you worked it out?"

Foss answered "No, Sir."

And that was it!

It was, after all, a secret trial and none of the lawyers ever
expected that transcripts would later become available, albeit more
than twenty years later.

My vote goes to a question put to Doug Williams on Media Day before
the Super Bowl in 1988: "How long have you been a black quarterback?"

My personal favourite is also the favourite of bad journalists
everywhere, stuffing microphones into the faces of disaster victims
and asking "How does it feel?"

willie-ga

There is of course, a difference between dumb questions, stupid
questions, and inappropriate questions.

Some candidates I've read over the years (sorry can't remember
sources!)

A computer expert, asked by a member of the government in the UK. He
was explaining how the computer could take the input, and spit out the
right answer.
"And if you were to feed it the wrong information, would it still give
you the right answers?"

In court cases:

"Was the victim alive when the atuopsy was performed?"

"You say he killed himself. Had he ever been known to do this before?"

There are a lot more of this kind of example.

A near and dear friend once posed this question, with regard to a b&w
television and a vcr:

"If I put a color movie in, will it still be black and white?"

We haven't talked in over 12 years.

Not a typical "dumb question," but I remember reading this several
years ago - it was an example used by a professor in law school to
demonstrate why you shouldn't ask questions you don't know the answer
to.

Cross-examining attorney:  Did you see him bite the individual's ear
off?
Witness:  No.
Attorney:  Then how do you know he did it?
Witness:  I saw him spit it out.

I rather liked when Dennis Pennis interviewed Chris Eubank, the boxer:

Dennis Pennis: "Have you ever thought of writing your autobiography?"
Chris Eubank: "On what?"

The dumbest question of all time has got to be "Are you ok?", directed
at an injured or dying person. It happens all the time, simply because
the rescuer is at a loss for anything better to say in the frist
critical moments of contact. The second dumbest question must then be,
"Where does it hurt" when you have had your leg broken or something
obvious like that.

The funniest question I've ever been asked came from my own elderly
mother. I bought her a VCR (she'd never owned/operated one before) and
a tape of her favorite movie. When the movie came on a banner appeared
that said "This motion pictured has been formatted to fit your
screen". She immediatley called me and asked me how the VCR knew how
big her TV screen was?

I've always said myself that there are no dumb questions, only dumb
people who ask them, but I don't think it's entirely true. In fact, I
believe that there is such a rich and varied wealth of dumb questions
to choose from that choosing a dumbest one would be akin to choosing a
favorite child.

That said, I'd imagine that the dumbest question would have to be one
based on a well-known fallacy, such as one that presupposes a factual
error or a logical impossibility, or perhaps a circular question.

As to the incorrect presuppositions, there are two basic varieties:
Those based on factual errors, and those based on logical errors. It
could be argued (and I would argue this) that those based on logical
errors are dumber, as the error is not based on any specialized
information, but is inherent in the question.

FACTUAL ERROR

(Regarding a protest march on the Washington Mall in DC): "Isn't this
sort of thing going to affect holiday sales for the store owners?"

The Washington Mall is not a shopping mall, as the asker assumed, and
as such, the question itself was pointless and unanswerable in its
original form, similar to the archetypal "Have you stopped beating
your wife?" question. In rhetoric, this is known as a complex
question.

LOGICAL ERROR

A nice clean example of this is the question, "Can I get a computer
virus from having an infected disk in the vicinity of my computer?"

Assuming only the most basic knowledge, such as the fact that
computers are not biological organisms, that binary data is not
airborne, and that the term 'virus' in this case is not a literal
virus, this question makes no sense. If computers communicated in this
way, we wouldn't need to connect all the parts together or hook them
up to data lines in order to transmit data.

Another one, from personal experience: A coworker once asked me
seriously, "If you don't like giving out your social security number
as identification, why don't you just tattoo some kind of personal
identifier on your arm or something?"

That's a non-sequitur. And, in fact, I'll cop to having responded with
a previously nominated dumb question, "WHAT?"

CIRCULAR REASONING 

The other kind of basic dumb question is circular reasoning. These
types, in my experience, are generally based on some sort of strongly
held belief system such as politics or religion.

A common one is this question often asked of atheists: "Why do you
hate God?"

The problem with this is that atheism is a lack of belief in gods, but
the question assumes the existence of God.

The following page provides a good basic overview of logical
fallacies, almost any of which could be phrased in the form of a dumb
question:

http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html

I'd suppose, although I've never been asked this - that the stupidest
question would indeed be "How do I ask a question?"  or "What is a
question?".. for obvious reasons :)

  The stupidest question that I've been asked (that I can remember, as
there are quite a few of them)... was from a teenaged girl who was on
her way to see the Leonardo DiCaprio/Kate Winslet version of Titanic,
and asked: "I don't want you to spoil the ending, but.. does the ship
sink?"

   I'm looking for one for you (I don't quite remember the just of
it), where Donald Rumsfeld was giving a press conference in response
to the events of September 11th.  The same reporter asked the same
stupid question 3+ times, and finally Rumsfeld gave him a smart-a**
comment in return.  If anyone remembers this, or could tell me where I
can find a transcript - that would be great.

-Rebekah

"Are you still here?" or "Are you home, already?"

I've thought of a few more, along the lines of the "are you OK?"
quesiton.

phone rings.
guy in bed answers "hello?"
voice on the end says "are you awake?"
what do you think?

Any question where a likely response doesn't answer the question would
be a candidate. Like the "are you here?" example. If there is no
response, you don't know any more then you did before asking.

Another one:
"Can I ask you a question?"

How about something like "Do you know if the store is open yet?" If
you get a yes or no answer, is the person answering your real question
(do you know...") or your implied question (is the store open?)

"Do you know what time it is?"
This question and others like it should never actually get you the
time. You simply learn whether the person knows or not.

"Can I help you?" you'd really be the person to determine whether or
not you are capable of helping the person. Any other Can I... type
question would apply here. Yes, you CAN go to the bathroom. No, you
MAY NOT go right now.

sparky4ca-ga

"Yes, you CAN go to the bathroom. No, you
MAY NOT go right now."

my 5th grade teacher used to tell me that all the time. lol

Isn't Steve Austin the 6 Million Dollar Man?

Captain of the Titanic - "Did we hit something?"

Captain of the Boston Red Sox - "New York can't win every year , Can
they?"

The two "Fans" that Mike Tyson is on trail for beating the sh#T out of
- "Hey, even though you got that tribal tattoo that looks like someone
crapped on your face, can we still get your autograph?"

Chauffeur for Archduke Ferdinand- "You want me to turn here?" 
 
Florida Elections Committee- "Does this ballot look good to you?" 
 
Kobe Bryant- "You sure you mean no?" 
 
Arthur Anderson- "Do these numbers look good to you?" 
 
GEN. George Custer- "Where did all these Indians come from?" 
 
Davy Jones- "Do you really think we'll be as big as The Beatles?" 
 
J.Lo- "Does my butt look big in this?" 
 
George W. Bush- "Did I really say that? 
 
Jenna&Barbara Bush- "Do you think anyone saw us?" 
 
M.C. Hammer-  "Do you want fries with that?" 
 
Evil Knievel- "When can I get back on a bike?"

Somehow one could have predicted this would be an actively commented
on question.

And we could list "stupid questions I have heard" from here to, oh,
wherever...but I felt compelled to throw an entry into the pot that
was asked to me once while I was teaching a first aid class--under the
category of "asked & answered":

"So, what is the number for 9-1-1?"

Hi, Master of Disaster

Please give us a clue.

Bryan