The Perils Of Privatisation - Part X
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Are people today unable to use the internet to research a question of a topic of interest?
Why do people post really dumb questions when they could just put key words into google and get the answer?
I do like the question below about boats being affected by lunar gravity. That is an interesting question. Lets have more of that type.
No best answer has yet been selected by alphamale. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I think I might have been one of the people who 'told you off' for questioning the motivation behind some apparently motiveless questions, gary baldy. Since which time I have noticed a number of such questions. Apologies to you, or to whoever I gave the telling-off to.
Having said that: part of the difficulty with google is knowing which keywords to type in - put them in the wrong order or with quotation marks in the wrong place and you won't get much joy. It helps to be able to spell correctly, too.
I posted this question here because this is were I see many of the Duh type questions:
what is a light year?
what is Ca, Xe, P, He. Our chemistry teacher asked us to find out.
what is a carbohydrate. Can you give links and explain type and what they are for?
And then people wonder why employers say that exams are dumbed down and the kids are thick.
You have to learn to use all of the learning and information aids available to you - friends, books, people who know about the subject you want to question, libraries etc. The internet is really good because even if you can't find the exact answer that you want then it will give you pointers where to go to outside the internet. Remember when using the internet: don't believe everthing you read - rubbish in rubbish out.
What this and other sites like this should be used for is for discussion, for putting forward questions for debate or to be thrashed around to get a collection of views as pointed out above - so I am not alone in these views.
I would rather people research their question before posting it - asking 'what is the speed of light' only makes you look a bit of a tit.
"Baldrick, what do you think? Thinking is so important."
"Thinking is so important My Lord."
So, when you have got your information try and learn from it. I can't believe that people appear not to even TRY to research some of thier questions before they ask them.
The whole human race will die out if we carry on like this. Now, there is a point for discussion. Not, why is the sky blue. But, "I don't understand what I've read about the why the sky is blue - can someone simplify it?" is a valid question.
qapmoc, selective memory. Just in case, the question was: ?
alphamale, whilst I agree there are some dumb questions asked, the clue is in the title "answerbank". Perhaps you could start "the debatebank" specifically for debate. What I like about AB (and I'm very new to it) is the friendly banter and humour (q.v. gary baldy - here and other sections).
Those of us who can not only recognise but also know how to use reference books are showing our age!
Hello Consie, you do realise that the human race is going to stall, or die out, if we lose our ability to research/learn/reason.
Think of the films Soylent Green or 1984 - do you want to end up like that?
There are some questions which do not have a clear answer as you can get a different answer depending on how you approach it - that's worthy of discussion to get other peoples views/answers.
But when you ask about the speed of light, really there is only one answer that will be accepted on an exam paper (except if you are Prof. Hawking). The speed of light question is just an example of a really really dumb question as the answer can be found so easily. What is unsure about that question.
Just because this is an 'AnswerBank' does not mean that you can be totally devoid of any intelligent thoughts.
As for the question, sorry, 'request' to 'supply all the links for intersting science web sites' make you wonder what is going on in the persons mind - I assume very little.
I want to encourage people think before they ask relatively simple questions and maybe do a little research first - it's not much to ask. It's up to us oldies to encourage the youngsters to think again.
Although I can see some support, there is not a lot. We're doooomed (Tommy/Capt. Mainwaring). ;-)