I'd say there are probably cases where people have gotten hurt by not asking "stupid" questions.
Almost certainly. I am also fairly confident that there is someone who has been hurt because he did look before crossing the road.
But does the negative utility from the situations "find out, get hurt from it" outweight "don't find out, get hurt from it?"
Isn't the heuristic More Knowledge => Better Decisions quite powerful?
Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules: