Copyright 2012 © by Ralph Couey
“There's
no such thing as 'the unknown,'
only
things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. “
--James
T. Kirk
Humans have proven themselves to be marvelously creative
creatures. We have faced challenges
throughout our entire existence, going back to the point in time some 60,000
years ago when Homo Sapiens achieved supremacy over the fading
Neanderthals. With every challenge came
an invention, an development, or just an idea that solved the problems that
were faced. Most were useful and
enduring and helped further our development.
Having some rare free time the other day, I cruised the Internet looking for a list of the top ten
inventions of all time. As you might
expect, everyone and their second cousin has an opinion on this matter and my
search turned up literally hundreds of lists.
While they all labored under the restriction of picking 10 great ideas
out of 60,000 years of history, I found a remarkable number of agreements on
the lists I read through.
High on everyone’s lists was plumbing, more specifically,
the flush toilet. That one’s so obvious
that I won’t take up any space explaining why.
Another was language, both spoken and written. Along with that came mathematics. The obvious subsets there include such things
as paper, the printing press and the computer.
There are so many of these kind of things that I concluded that it would
be impossible to settle on only 10 items.
But, I thought about it for a while and came up with what I consider to
be the most significant things humans have done.
1.
FIRE – There’s
no way of knowing who or how fire was “invented.” Perhaps it was a lightening strike that set a
forest afire, or maybe something as simple as a case of spontaneous combustion
occurring in a pile of stuff. Whatever
the source, fire became one of the things that assured our survival. Night could be pushed back by the light of
torches and lamps. Winters now could be
survived, perhaps reducing the impact of sickness. Meat could be cooked and preserved, providing
a steady supply of protein even in times when fresh provender was hard to come
by. Fire also made possible the firing
of clay into pots, and the smelting of metals, such as bronze and iron into all
kinds of useable things. In this modern
era, it is still absolutely essential to industry, and it is that tiny spark
inside that makes the engines of our cars and trucks go down the road. You could say that fire was the flame that
has lighted our way.
2.
COMMUNICATION – This covers a wide swath of
things, initially the ability to speak to each other, to convey ideas and
messages; to teach and therefore carry forward the irreplaceable gift of knowledge
and wisdom from one generation to the next.
Written language meant that now knowledge could be captured and
preserved for the ages. History, the
accounting of where we’ve been and what we’ve done, could now be written and
studied by, as Chamberlain said, “generations that know us not.” From clay tablets to animal-skin parchment,
to modern milled paper, and even digital storage media has enabled us to learn,
and also to teach.
3.
MEDICINE AND MEDICAL CARE – In our early years,
many of our forebears died from things as complicated as disease, and as simple
as a bad fall. The development of
medicines, originally from herbs, helped beat back the scourge of
sickness. The advancement of medical
science was initially slow. Even as late
as 1790, doctors were still bleeding sick patients, believing that the body
held too much blood and that letting some out would also release the bad
spirits causing the malady. Along came
surgery, unfortunately before the invention of anesthesia, where doctors
actually went inside the body to fix problems.
John Adams, the revolutionary leader and our second president had a
daughter called Nabby. She contracted
breast cancer and was forced to endure a radical mastectomy with only a stick
clenched in her teeth to allay the pain.
Now we live in a world where even the worst kinds of illnesses, ones
that killed thousands of our forebears, have been brought to heel by incredible
advances in drugs and treatment protocols.
Yet other things like cancer, diabetes, and MS still resist the
onslaught of the power of human intelligence.
However, despite the continuing struggle, most researchers consider the
cure for all disease to be only a matter of time.
4.
TECHNOLOGY – The first use of technology was
probably tools – stone knives, spears, and other tools – that made survival
possible. Technology, in the form of
boats and later ships meant that the bounty of the sea and the ability to
transport ourselves across it was now available to us. Other things like the magnetic compass that made
trans-oceanic navigation possible, or the wheel itself that made us mobile and
able to transport things. Electricity
lit the civilized world; heated our homes in winter and cooled them in summer,
also making possible the telephone and eventually the computer and the
Internet. The integrated circuit, the
heart and –dare I say? – soul of the modern computer, and that also found
itself into things as simple as a child’s toy to things as complex as cardiac
pacemakers. As they continue to get
smaller and more powerful, their applicability will only expand. Even now, engineers are developing switching
devices the size of atoms that will shrink the size of our phones, music
players and storage media to as small as we need or want them to be. Batteries, the ability to store electricity
and make it portable are getting more powerful every year. Almost
everything we touch and interact with embodies the breath-taking developments
so far, and presages even more wondrous things in the future.
5.
AGRICULTURE – Humans must eat to survive and the
ability to plant a seed, help it grow, and harvest the plant brought a balance
to our diets that meat alone could not fill.
Agriculture, being fixed, also helped organize humans into rational
communities, such as towns and eventually cities. Farm technology has advanced from the pointed
stick to the plow and oxen, to the modern tractors and implements which now
enables a single farmer and family to plant, harvest, and send to market the
bounty of hundreds of acres.
6.
INDUSTRY – The ability to make a thing has
always been one of the hallmarks of humanity.
The development of methods to make many things at the same time meant
that now a person need not have to invent something, but could buy someone
else’s idea. Growing from the
neighborhood blacksmith to manufacturing plants covering tens of acres,
industry became the primary mover in global economies, harnessing skills and
providing employment to millions.
7.
CHEMISTRY AND BIOLOGY – From the development of
life-saving medicines to the formulation of exotic materials, the ability to
combine constituent elements into substances is another development that has
touched us all. Combining iron with
other metallic elements made possible the development of steel, which made
possible tall buildings, among other things.
The manipulation of polymers and carbon atoms created structures that
are even stronger than steel. Even
simple bread is the result of the complex reaction between yeast, flower, and
water. Understanding the mysteries of
life from the micro of DNA to the macro of evolution has given us a clearer
comprehension of the biological world and our place in it.
8.
SANITATION – The discovery that germs and
viruses were the cause of most of mankind’s most devastating illnesses, and the
susceptibility of those same microbes to things like soap and hot water, and
pure alcohol, meant that children had a much better chance of survival. No more would they die of sicknesses such as
typhoid, cholera, and dysentery as long as the water they drank was
boiled. The understanding of the
biohazard inherent in human waste drove the development of safe and efficient
ways of disposing them. The introduction
of antiseptic standards into hospitals and particularly operating rooms greatly
reduced the incidence of infection. We
learn to live cleaner, and therefore, safer lives.
9.
WARFARE – Humans, for the most part, have been
generally kind and decent to each other.
However, the mystery of genetics and DNA still produces the occasional
bent human who not only is violent and ruthless but possesses the ability to
marshal millions to follow them on a path of conquest and destruction. Without the ability to resist, humans would
eventually all come under the thumb of dictators and perhaps murdered as
well. The ability to protect good
against evil is not as subjective as some might think. A battleground is, after all, the place where
inventions of need are most often created.
Weaponry started out as sticks and stones, became spears and lances,
bows and arrows, swords and knives, guns, cannon, bombs, and noxious
chemicals. The secrets of nuclear
physics were cracked, not out of a peaceful situation, but under the heat of
battle. Not only did two of those weapons
end the costliest war in human history, but also that same knowledge has since
unlocked the secrets of the cosmos. Medical
developments meant to save soldiers in the field now save the lives of patients
in hospitals. War, with all its violence,
destruction, and dark terror, is nonetheless a laboratory of ideas.
10.
LAWS AND ORDER – From the time when humans first
organized themselves into communities, the need for a body of rules by which to
govern themselves was always required.
From the narrow to the broad, it was necessary to define acceptable
behavior within society. Laws, and the
ability to enforce them, ensured that some semblance of fair treatment and
justice would exist. While there have
been many times when laws were different for leaders than they were for
citizens, the codification of legal statutes has still made it possible for
societies to exist absent chaos. With
laws, came the necessity for those to enforce them. Police and their many forebears made sure we
were protected against each other, and also ourselves. Courts and judges provided the venue for the
hearing of those cases. And prisons made
it possible for the guilty to be segregated from the rest of society. Unfortunately, laws also created lawyers, but
I guess you have to take the good with the bad.
So there they are. My
take on the most significant things humans have done is necessarily broad
because everything else flows from these ten.
And even given the wondrous nature of human ingenuity up to this point,
there’s still a spectacular future to come.
Stay tuned!
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