Websites commonly display a link entitled FAQs - standing for Frequently Asked Questions. When promoting a product or service, FAQs provide a quick and simple way of informing the visitor about what this may be. The assumption is that FAQs ask the basic questions a visitor might ask about what is on offer. For each question, there is a brief prepared answer. All it takes is a few clicks for the visitor to get what needs to be known.
It does not follow that Frequently Asked Questions are questions frequently asked. Indeed, it does not follow that FAQs ever get asked. As noted above, they are devices for providing information. It is probably no coincidence that when spoken as if it were a word, the abbreviation FAQs sounds like ‘Facts’ (especially if using a softened ‘t’ sound).
Although they take the form of questions, FAQs do not test our knowledge. They are not like examination questions. They are devices for providing essential information quickly and easily. But for a quirk of fate, we might have been looking at links entitled WYNTK - what-you-need-to-know. FAQs give the visitor need-to-know information. Therefore, FAQs are, in effect, need-to-ask questions. I am very interested in the idea that there are need-to-ask questions. So, I want to explore this characteristic of FAQs on this blog. When applied to the study of the human body, what are the fundamental need-to-ask questions and are they asked frequently enough?
FAQs have other uses. FAQs draw attention to potential gaps in our knowledge or understanding for which no simple, ready-made answers are available. There are questions asked since antiquity for which there are still no definitive answers. Having been asked for centuries, these are the most frequently asked questions. Such questions continue to be asked more for what we gain from asking than in anticipation of an answer. With potentially no answer, they cause us to think differently about a problem. The FAQ idea is used on this blog to explore things to puzzle over rather than provide you with ready-made answers. Where this strand of the blog goes, I cannot tell in advance.
For fun, here are two questions I shall call FAQs and which came to mind while drafting this post.
FAQ - Who wrote the first FAQ?
The question of who wrote the first FAQ is fundamental, although I suspect it is probably one of the least frequently asked. I mention it because it illustrates how an obvious question gets overlooked. Although philosophical discourse using question-and-answer techniques goes back into antiquity (not least to Plato’s dialogues featuring Socrates), these were more often used to draw out a particular response than to give a prepared answer.
A good candidate for the first to provide a set of FAQs in the modern sense may be Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). In his unfinished Summa Theologica (Summary of Theology), he wrote responses to common questions about Christianity. These provided information about what one needed to know about that religion. This approach is akin to the question-and-answer technique used for religious instruction in a catechism.
Medical students’ FAQ
When I taught anatomy to medical students, the question ‘Is it true that men have one rib less than women?’ was frequently asked. This question refers back, of course, to the Biblical story of the formation of Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. (See: Genesis 2:21).
I do not explore this type of FAQ on this blog. I mention it because it is about the human body and because with each new intake, students would ask about it. Finding an answer to this question is very simple and can be found in any anatomical textbook. (But to save you time, men and women each have the same number of ribs: 12 pairs. Nowadays, one might expect the number of ribs question to be superseded by one about the voracity of cloning a female from a male since there are chromosomal differences between the sexes.)
