We at LSS take unashamed pleasure from watching people do clever things. When someone from IT suddenly sorts out all our computer problems. To see a Doctor give a sudden and excellent diagnosis. Or even when a potter suddenly throws and bakes a humble object of surprising beauty. That’s why we make no bones about directing you to this intriguing post from the Treehugger site called Ten Accidental Inventions That Changed The World.[1] Some of the things here are so mundane that we take them for granted. X rays, matches, microwaves, for example. Yet try to imagine life without them. Others , like penicillin(the first real antibiotic) were superb, but we will soon lose this class due to our own greed and folly.
However, there is one theme which we think may link these several discoveries. All were played into a culture, or economy if you will, that was ready to receive them. At least in part. Where the educated and innovated existed in sufficient masses to let the new ideas be taken up and applied. The difference today is that large part of the world is falling into the hands of political dictators and religious and political dogmatists whose chief aim is to oppose new ideas. To whom critical thinking is the work of elitists and guests at the London Dinner Party circuit (what’s that?-ed) Just as the Ancient World declined and sank into the Medieval Period, the rate of new developments declined sharply, while religious dogma became the chief focus of intellectual effort.
Are we starting to go the same way?
#inventions #matches #antibiotics #x rays #invention #science #technology
Learning, Science and Society 