Comment on In the last 1000 years we have not advanced as a species. We are just as tribal, dogmatic and reactionary as we always were. Given that scientists are people too, will science save us?

Mothra@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• derekabutton@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Quite a bit of human development has been in the category of nurture, as opposed to nature. While humans have changed little biologically, I have an “appendage” in my hand that can communicate with an individual in space. Memes replicate and evolve much more quickly than genes do.

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  • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yes but the change is not permanent. It dies with you.

    All you would need is for the change not to be passed on to the next generation and all that progress is lost.

    We currently spend decades passing on that knowledge to each child.

    If that ever stops, the progress disappears in one generation.

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    • Jamie@jamie.moe ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Accumulated knowledge in our society really is frail. Take a computer mouse, tons of people are involved in making them, they’re considered extremely simple tools. Yet not one person on the planet could go out into nature, get the natural resources required, and without help turn those resources into a working computer mouse.

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  • Mothra@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    While it is true that we have collectively made significant progress with technology, (if that’s what you mean by “nurture”) it hasn’t changed our aggressive behaviour as a species which is what OP was questioning. Sure, we have made significant changes culturally, technologically, and with memes- so what?

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    • derekabutton@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I suggest memes as in the Richard Dawkins original definition, not funny haha memes but shared reproducible culture. We are social creatures, more than any other, and our social development has happened far more quickly than typical evolution ever could.

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