3 ms·

Wow, that's absolutely brilliant. Thanks for sharing. It's particularly impressive to see how old (and accurate) some of these measurements are.

• chii 14y ago
  i got goosebumps - i mean, the people of old are really intelligent! they used whatever piece of data they can scrunge together to piece the truth out. I feel like these days, we aren't putting in as much effort in these endeavours as the days of old. I wonder why...
  • StavrosK 14y ago
    That's easy! Rosy retrospection, positivity effect, there are a few biases going on here.
  • 205guy 14y ago
    The "people of old" were just as intelligent as humans today, they just didn't have the same access to technology or stored knowledge (which is why Wikipedia is so revolutionary in some ways). If you look at the statuary from Classical times or the cathedrals of medieval Europe, you come to realize these people were just like us. Some went through life unthinking, others probably had unrealized gifts, and a few were able to show their talents. Also, I'm no anthropologist, but I believe modern humans have existed longer than wrting and the historical record, so I would conjecture that humans up to 10,000 years ago--perhaps all the way back to the Cro-Magnons of 40Kya--were just as intelligent as people today, just they didn't have the means to express it the way we do. In some ways, the wasted educations and wasted talent of today is apalling. I was in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris recently and realized no one has created anything like it in 800 years.