Asking Questions in Class

There is a big email discussion going on amongst some students about whether a certain physics course is good. Here's what one person had to say about it:
"
>Honestly, it's not that
> bad. Just take it. Everyone who's cool and hardcore will think you're
> awesome. Besides, if you have any common sense it's easy. I do warn
> about some of the rather...talkative students with a penchant for asking
> questions without prior reflection.
"
There are two sentences that bug me about this evaluation. 1) "Everyone who's cool and hardcore with think you're awesome" and 2)"I do warn you about some of the rather...talkative students with a penchant for asking questions without prior reflection."
Today I'm going to adress the second sentence.
I'll say up front that yes, it is not a great idea to ask questions without thinking about whether they are worth asking first. These terrible, annoying people should shut their pieholes for once and think a little.
But this is usually not the problem. Far too often students will reflect and ponder their question so much that by the time they decide to ask the question, the lecture has already moved on. Usually they don't even reflect upon the right thing! Instead of wondering if their question has an obvious answer, the student wonders, "will this question make me look stupid? Will I look like I don't understand the material." The answer is yes. Since you have a question, you probably don't understand the material, and yes, you will look stupid. At least to those hardcore guys who have any common sense. But I assure you, these people are in the minority. And honestly, who cares if those hardcore people think you're stupid? You know you're not stupid. You know everyone is asking the same question, so just suck it up and ask already.
Thinking before you ask is important. But it's better to ask a little quickly than to not ask at all. Why? Because not asking questions destroys people's innovation and curiosity. Once you stop verbally asking questions, eventually you will stop thinking of questions, and just learn to accept your reality. I can assure you that most innovators (Einstein, Bohr, DeBroglie), the REALLY hardcore people, did ask questions. Lots of them. They were probably a little annoying, and sure, occasionally got so caught up in questioning that they may not have thought before asking.
I don't know about you, but I'm sort of glad that these people so vigorously questioned what they were learning. I certainly wouldn't be upset if sometimes they asked a question which to me seemed either ridiculous or obvious. How do you think great discoveries are made?
One finaly question: why are we paying these professors so much money if we could learn all the material equally well from a textbook? So that we can ask our professors questions, regardless of how stupid they may be.