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In my youth, I believed that people hundreds of years earlier were not as intelligent as modern folks. I was obviously very wrong. Their inventions simply use

In my youth, I believed that people hundreds of years earlier were not as intelligent as modern folks. I was obviously very wrong. Their inventions simply used the scientific awareness of the time (I usually call that a "scientific vocabulary" and I don't know if that's the right way to put it.) My point is that they were just as smart and industrious as any other people of any other time, and like everyone of every time, they were limited by the resources available at the time.

dredmorbius 7y ago
People have changed little evolutionarially over a few centuries (though the notion that all adaptation has ceased is all but certainly false). Factors such as nutrition, disease, and stress may well affect overall intelligence, if such a thing can be reasonably measured, and there are notions such as the Flynn Effect suggesting increases to IQ over the course of the 20th century (though more recent work suggests this may have slowed or halted). Modern capabilities owe much to earlier work, recorded knowledge, a much larger workforce devoted to innovation, the capabilities afforded by tremendously increased energy utilisation (including more and purer materials, precision, control, etc.), as well as the (often slow) abandonment of earlier notions, particularly those endorsed by or supporting specific religious or nationalist/tribalistic notions. My view is that the net total intelligence has changed relatively little, but that opportunities, knowledge, and sheer physical capacity have increased tremendously.
onemoresoop 7y ago
Yes, I remember too when I was younger I had the impession that earlier generations were somehow naive, but boy was I wrong.
pjscott 7y ago
A small minority of unusually smart inventors is all you really need to explain impressive past technological achievements. This doesn't really prove anything one way or the other. I'd be surprised if people hundreds of years ago were as smart on average as people today, just because of the much higher rates of malnutrition back then.

dredmorbius 7y ago

People have changed little evolutionarially over a few centuries (though the notion that all adaptation has ceased is all but certainly false). Factors such as nutrition, disease, and stress may well affect overall intelligence, if such a thing can be reasonably measured, and there are notions such as the Flynn Effect suggesting increases to IQ over the course of the 20th century (though more recent work suggests this may have slowed or halted). Modern capabilities owe much to earlier work, recorded knowledge, a much larger workforce devoted to innovation, the capabilities afforded by tremendously increased energy utilisation (including more and purer materials, precision, control, etc.), as well as the (often slow) abandonment of earlier notions, particularly those endorsed by or supporting specific religious or nationalist/tribalistic notions. My view is that the net total intelligence has changed relatively little, but that opportunities, knowledge, and sheer physical capacity have increased tremendously.

onemoresoop 7y ago

Yes, I remember too when I was younger I had the impession that earlier generations were somehow naive, but boy was I wrong.

pjscott 7y ago

A small minority of unusually smart inventors is all you really need to explain impressive past technological achievements. This doesn't really prove anything one way or the other. I'd be surprised if people hundreds of years ago were as smart on average as people today, just because of the much higher rates of malnutrition back then.