There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.

Students ask great questions. And by "great," I mean that they give me a lot to make fun of to my colleagues and friends. In all fairness, most students ask decent questions. However, it's the students who ask ridiculous questions that are most annoying in class and most entertaining out of class.

Here are two gems:

"Sometimes my leg goes completely numb, why is that?" Keep in mind, I am a psychology professor and this was asked in a psychology class. I guess I could have launched into some Freudian mumbo-jumbo about how the id was likely angry at his leg and the ego, in a protective maneuver, made the leg go numb so that the id would forget about it?

Talking about treatments for depression in class one day, I was describing the herbal remedy St. John's Wort (which has been shown to have some positive effects on people with depression). A student raises her hand and says, "Is that like aspirin?"

Yes, it's exactly like aspirin. That's why it has a different name, different use, and completely different chemical make-up.