Uneven advancement between science and mentality in humans.

[koti]

Spherical earth dates as far as 6th century BC where it appeared in greek philosophy. It remained a speculation untill the 3rd century when hellenists established  the spherical earth as a physical given.

This alone is an astounding example of a large discrepancy between scientific and technological advancement and human mentality not being able to keep up. It seems that over the period of the last couple of thousand years we’ve made several, huge leaps in science and technology and ended up in 2017 with quantum computing, advanced genetics, silicon technology rulling the earth and the space in our solar system but mentally we are not keeping up with for example religion being important to the majority of the ~7bln people where basic, confirmed truths are being dubted every day by majority of the people on earth. Is this discrepancy our evolutionary imperfection or something else? The availability and freeflow of information should (at least it seems to me) be able to cope with this...or is it simply that our brains need several thousands of years to change and are not capable of coping with short periods of time where the huge scientific advancements were made?

When you look at other species it seems that we are the only one with such discrepancies between ourselves. Im shooting in the dark here but it seems to me that every chimp has similar mental and physical abilities, just like every fish or bacteria. Every chimp deals with far less information than an average human so that might be the reason but then again you cant teach calculus to a chimp and that should be enough for every human to be more or less on the same level of basic knowledge - which is not the case. Has anyone done studies on this?

Edited September 30, 2017 by koti

[scherado]

1 hour ago, koti said:

...mentally we are not keeping up with for example religion being important to the majority of the ~7bln people where basic, confirmed truths are being dubted [doubted] every day by majority of the people on earth.

I thought this to be an important part of your OP but I must ask for clarification, after which I can interpret the entire OP. I'm not sure I know what "menatally we are not keeping up with" means; I do understand the fact that religion remains important to many billions of people; I do understand that there are confirmed truths, presumably scientific and observational, that are denied by some large number of people.

[koti]

46 minutes ago, scherado said:

I thought this to be an important part of your OP but I must ask for clarification, after which I can interpret the entire OP. I'm not sure I know what "menatally we are not keeping up with" means; I do understand the fact that religion remains important to many billions of people; I do understand that there are confirmed truths, presumably scientific and observational, that are denied by some large number of people.

Seems you understand what the OP is trying to convey. I read some of your posts in other threads just now, please feel free to add me to your ignore list.

[scherado]

5 minutes ago, koti said:

Seems you understand what the OP is trying to convey. I read some of your posts in other threads just now, please feel free to add me to your ignore list.

Nope, I was very explicit as exactly what I did not understand.

Nope, I determine who goes on and when.

If you have a dispute with my simple request, then I will respond.

If you can't handle the simple, civil request, then I insist the you put me on your ignore list.

Further, if you dispute anything I wrote in any other threads, then I think it best that you register your dispute in those threads.

Thanks.

Edited September 30, 2017 by scherado

[dimreepr]

2 hours ago, koti said:

Spherical earth dates as far as 6th century BC where it appeared in greek philosophy. It remained a speculation untill the 3rd century when hellenists established  the spherical earth as a physical given.

This alone is an astounding example of a large discrepancy between scientific and technological advancement and human mentality not being able to keep up. It seems that over the period of the last couple of thousand years we’ve made several, huge leaps in science and technology and ended up in 2017 with quantum computing, advanced genetics, silicon technology rulling the earth and the space in our solar system but mentally we are not keeping up with for example religion being important to the majority of the ~7bln people where basic, confirmed truths are being dubted every day by majority of the people on earth. Is this discrepancy our evolutionary imperfection or something else? The availability and freeflow of information should (at least it seems to me) be able to cope with this...or is it simply that our brains need several thousands of years to change and are not capable of coping with short periods of time where the huge scientific advancements were made?

When you look at other species it seems that we are the only one with such discrepancies between ourselves. Im shooting in the dark here but it seems to me that every chimp has similar mental and physical abilities, just like every fish or bacteria. Every chimp deals with far less information than an average human so that might be the reason but then again you cant teach calculus to a chimp and that should be enough for every human to be more or less on the same level of basic knowledge - which is not the case. Has anyone done studies on this?

AFAIK no society has suggested the Earth is flat, until recently; any discrepancy, as far as I can see, is the result of an ever-increasing inequality in our modern capitalist system and the education it provides.

[koti]

20 hours ago, dimreepr said:

AFAIK no society has suggested the Earth is flat, until recently; any discrepancy, as far as I can see, is the result of an ever-increasing inequality in our modern capitalist system and the education it provides.

Flat earth is not the main issue here, its the overall inability of the population to cope with various scientific and technological advancements. Only a fraction of the population knows how a smartphone works whereas every chimp and every fish knows how their stuff works. I dont see how the modern capitalist systems inequality has anything to do with this when looking at a time span of mentioned 2K years.

Edited October 1, 2017 by koti

[Roamer]

If you don't know how a smart phone works, buy one and you'll learn.

Just like animals don't know what to do in (bio)nature but start learning by watching their parents and by trying out ... and occasionally just straght-up failing to learn their required skill(s) and die.

(and no, we're not genetically engineered to deal with smartphones, lukcily for us, capitalists have engineered smartphones to be dealt with by us.)

 

 

[DrKrettin]

37 minutes ago, Roamer said:

If you don't know how a smart phone works, buy one and you'll learn.

 

I think you are confusing "how to use one" with "how it works". I suspect the vast majority of uses are adept at using it, but have absolutely no idea how it actually works.

23 hours ago, dimreepr said:

AFAIK no society has suggested the Earth is flat, until recently; any discrepancy, as far as I can see, is the result of an ever-increasing inequality in our modern capitalist system and the education it provides.

What an extraordinary claim. Try reading a few lines from Homer's Odyssey (ca. 700 B.C.) Book 1.22:

"But Poseidon was gone now to visit  the far Aithiopians,

Aithiopians, most distant of men, who live divided,

some at the setting  of Hyperion, some at his rising."

 

Aithiopian (now Ethiopian) means literally "burned face" i.e. black. The idea is clearly that they lived where the sun rose or where the sun set, and they had black faces because the sun was obviously much nearer the Earth at those points. That makes total sense with a flat Earth, standard assumption of that era (or earlier tradition at any rate)

[dimreepr]

12 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

 

What an extraordinary claim. Try reading a few lines from Homer's Odyssey (ca. 700 B.C.) Book 1.22:

 

I'm repeating a claim by the BBC program QI (a fact-based comedy game show with a team of researchers)

Quote

 typically answers that are generally believed to be true but in fact are misconceptions.

 

18 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

"But Poseidon was gone now to visit  the far Aithiopians,

Aithiopians, most distant of men, who live divided,

some at the setting  of Hyperion, some at his rising."

 

Aithiopian (now Ethiopian) means literally "burned face" i.e. black. The idea is clearly that they lived where the sun rose or where the sun set, and they had black faces because the sun was obviously much nearer the Earth at those points. That makes total sense with a flat Earth, standard assumption of that era (or earlier tradition at any rate)

1

Well, that's one interpretation but a little tenuous.

[scherado]

3 hours ago, koti said:

...every chimp and every fish knows how their stuff works.

I take issue with that, for obvious reasons. More to the point, stating such a thing--no matter the improbable positive truth-value of it--would, should lead the reader to spend time elsewhere.

Nevertheless, the question of exactly what explains the "or something else?" you asked in your OP is very good. It may be a psychological question. I don't believe that the answer to your question is to be found in any theory or biological evolution.

I have more to add, but you've made it quite clear that you are not interested in my contributions.

[Sensei]

On 30.09.2017 at 0:46 PM, koti said:

 Is this discrepancy our evolutionary imperfection or something else?

You're completely ignoring fact that until XIX century there was no free obligatory education (obligatory primary schools), even in western culture countries.

Education was for 1) nobility 2) rich urbanite 3) clerics. Only few richest lucky people were learning how to read and write, not even mentioning more advanced things..

 

Check out rate of illiterate persons vs years. Worldwide and per country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy

Illiteracy rate in France between XVIII-XIX centuries:

Worldwide it's looking much worser..

 

On 30.09.2017 at 0:46 PM, koti said:

The availability and freeflow of information should (at least it seems to me) be able to cope with this...

...but you first need to know how to read and write to be able use stored information..

(and of course you need to be interested in how Universe/World works.. majority of people IMHO are not really interested)

 

Edited October 1, 2017 by Sensei

[Roamer]

54 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

I think you are confusing "how to use one" with "how it works". I suspect the vast majority of uses are adept at using it, but have absolutely no idea how it actually works.

ah, i see, he means the inner workings.

But then, how many chimps know why banana grow from a tree ?

They know that they do, and that's enough for them... just like the average smart-phone user doesn't need to be able to write their own OS system just to be able to use it.

 

 

[iNow]

4 hours ago, koti said:

Only a fraction of the population knows how a smartphone works whereas every chimp and every fish knows how their stuff works.

How can you possibly believe / assert this about chimps and fish? Even if true, you can’t sypport it with data. Just like us, they know enough how to use what they need, but will generally lack deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms. 

3 minutes ago, Roamer said:

ah, i see, he means the inner workings.

But then, how many chimps know why banana grow from a tree ?

They know that they do, and that's enough for them... just like the average smart-phone user doesn't need to be able to write their own OS system just to be able to use it.

 

 

Exactly. 

[DrKrettin]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

I'm repeating a claim by the BBC program QI (a fact-based comedy game show with a team of researchers)

 

Well, that's one interpretation but a little tenuous.

Fair enough, but I suspect none of them were classicists, making a claim like that, because they are very shaky ground. Any one example as I gave is necessarily tenuous, but taken together with other examples, we can be fairly certain that the flat Earth was assumed until early Greek scientists came along. 

I could go on, but this is off-topic, so I'll just quote Wiki:

The flat Earth model is an archaic conception of Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD), and China until the 17th century. 

[tuco]

On 30/09/2017 at 0:46 PM, koti said:

Spherical earth dates as far as 6th century BC where it appeared in greek philosophy. It remained a speculation untill the 3rd century when hellenists established  the spherical earth as a physical given.

This alone is an astounding example of a large discrepancy between scientific and technological advancement and human mentality not being able to keep up. It seems that over the period of the last couple of thousand years we’ve made several, huge leaps in science and technology and ended up in 2017 with quantum computing, advanced genetics, silicon technology rulling the earth and the space in our solar system but mentally we are not keeping up with for example religion being important to the majority of the ~7bln people where basic, confirmed truths are being dubted every day by majority of the people on earth. Is this discrepancy our evolutionary imperfection or something else? The availability and freeflow of information should (at least it seems to me) be able to cope with this...or is it simply that our brains need several thousands of years to change and are not capable of coping with short periods of time where the huge scientific advancements were made?

When you look at other species it seems that we are the only one with such discrepancies between ourselves. Im shooting in the dark here but it seems to me that every chimp has similar mental and physical abilities, just like every fish or bacteria. Every chimp deals with far less information than an average human so that might be the reason but then again you cant teach calculus to a chimp and that should be enough for every human to be more or less on the same level of basic knowledge - which is not the case. Has anyone done studies on this?

Human mentality is keeping up alright since humans invented all the tech  

That body of knowledge about reality is so wast not a single human can comprehend it all is obvious. Whether or not confirmed truths (scientific theories and facts) are being doubted or not I am not sure but I suspect that only relatively few people would for example reject medical treatment from MD or expert opinion on structure and composition of their ceiling, regardless what they believe. 

However, trying to understand the point you are making, what you call discrepancy is evolutionary advantage - human brain is capable of working with abstract concepts, has power to imagine, is able to simulate. That is all really imo. 

[Roamer]

On 1-10-2017 at 5:35 PM, tuco said:

However, trying to understand the point you are making, what you call discrepancy is evolutionary advantage - human brain is capable of working with abstract concepts, has power to imagine, is able to simulate. That is all really imo. 

*claps*

compared to:

[OldChemE]

In reading the OP carefully, I think it raises the important point that, while science has advanced dramatically, the human ability to accept it and not depend on other non-scientific things (such as religion) has not.  I have thought on this subject a lot in the past.  My conclusion is that a significant portion of humanity is uncomfortable with events beyond their control and feel a need for someone or something to be in control.  This leads some to believe in religion because they would rather believe that events are part of 'God's Plan' rather than beyond control, others to believe in magic, conspiracies, "they are doing this" (whoever "they" are), etc.  Unfortunately, I suspect this is inherent in the structure of the human brain and the way in which it evolved.  We need to keep in mind that for probably 99% + of the timeline of humanity humans have not had science and have not had control over their environment.

[Prometheus]

When first i read the OP i first thought of Martin Luther King saying:

Quote

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

or the quote misattributed to Einstein:

Quote

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."

 

But the rest of the discussion seems to be along the lines Carl Sagan's thoughts:

Quote

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." 

 

Which is a slightly different query so thought i'd clarify which the OP wished to discuss.

 

On 13/10/2017 at 2:10 AM, OldChemE said:

We need to keep in mind that for probably 99% + of the timeline of humanity humans have not had science and have not had control over their environment.

I know life isn't very well defined but isn't being able to control the environment to some degree generally agreed to be one of the key characteristics of life? Also, the idea that religion offers solace in god's plan is very eurocentric: many religions do not offer that solace. It has not developed independently in separated parts of the world, which we might expect if it were a common feature of our psychology. Instead we see the Abrahamic monotheism that dominates the world now spring up once in the world, be particularly aggressive in its ideology, and spread quickly around the world. 

[OldChemE]

On 10/15/2017 at 4:51 AM, Prometheus said:

 

I know life isn't very well defined but isn't being able to control the environment to some degree generally agreed to be one of the key characteristics of life?

Well, yes---I should have said something like "very limited control over the environment"

[Moreno]

I think this problem can be described slightly different way: "Uneven advancement between DIFFERENT HUMANS".