I'm learning Python from a book right now and I can't figure out what the point is of using the %s to site a specific item in a list, string, dictionary, etc.

For example:

names = ["jones", "cohen", "smith", "griffin"]

print(names[1])
print("%s" % names[1])

Both commands print "cohen," what's the point of ever using the %s?

The idea is to allow you to easily create more complicated output like

print("The name is %s!" % names[1])

instead of

print("The name is " + names[1] + "!")

However, as you're just starting to use Python, you should start learning the new string formatting syntax right away:

print("The name is {}!".format(names[1])

Of course, this example can't show the real power of string formatting methods. You can do much more with those, for example (taken from the docs linked above):

>>> '{0}{1}{0}'.format('abra', 'cad')   # arguments' indices can be repeated
'abracadabra'
>>> coord = {'latitude': '37.24N', 'longitude': '-115.81W'}
>>> 'Coordinates: {latitude}, {longitude}'.format(**coord)
'Coordinates: 37.24N, -115.81W'
>>> coord = (3, 5)
>>> 'X: {0[0]};  Y: {0[1]}'.format(coord)
'X: 3;  Y: 5'
>>> # format also supports binary numbers
>>> "int: {0:d};  hex: {0:#x};  oct: {0:#o};  bin: {0:#b}".format(42)
'int: 42;  hex: 0x2a;  oct: 0o52;  bin: 0b101010'

and so on...