Here’s a list of the top 25 innovations of mankind throughout history, and I think it’s a pretty decent list. I have a few disputes though. One: Clicky pens didn’t make the list. Two: I dispute whether evolution should have made the list. It’s a real smartee theory, but you can’t really like do anything with it. It’s a useful heuristic (“Why do people laugh? There must be an evolutionary purpose!”), but it’s really more of a narrative than something directly useful. Then again, the list paired it up with natural selection, which is a more directly useful concept (it’s why liberals should be hobos).
I wonder what innovations we could have in the future that will supplant those on this list? I’m sure in the future when people have flying cars, triangular TVs, and socks with lights on them they’ll be like, “I don’t know how we could have every lived with out our tachyon particle destablizers. To think anyone could compare that to steam power.” And I’d be like, “Shut up, you stupid dumb person! Without steam power, how would people have gotten down the Mississippi River? I should kill you for your insolence! Activate robo-punch!” By the way, in the future I’m unquestioned ruler of everything and have a robot body.
I will be an Adrienne Barbeaubot
Where’s the list? Link?
I guess “hyperlinks” was not on the list Jimmy.
Of course evolution should make the list: it gave us Fred Thompson. Unless you’re arguing he deserves a spot of his own on the list.
Look, you can say we may have all come from monkeys, but Fred Thompson did not come from friggin’ monkeys. You got it?
Frank is too absent minded to be unquestioned ruler of anything. But hey, at least he can spell. (sarc)
I fully expect retribution for my isolence. I’m wearing headgear.
Ok, we make our OWN list of the top 25 innovations of mankind throughout history:
25. Coffee pots – without one, I can’t get started in the morning.
(next – your turn)
24. Tighty-whities – nothing worse than when your coin purse sticks to your inner thigh.
BTW, how is evolution an innovation? Did gravity make the list too?
23. The mute button – imagine not being able to silence Obama ads.
Yeah, I don’t think you can classify a discovery as an innovation, since that is by nature an invention. Unless you are saying evolution is purely fictional, of course. Then it would be an invention. Even 5 day creationists believe in microevolution, for Pete’s sake. Or Chuck’s. Or whatever.
22. Fences – they make such nice neighbors.
21. Tetris
Uh, hello? Beer is not on the list?
I agree with evolution being an innovation. It’s just that as far as man-made ideas go, it isn’t a well thought out one. I’ll tell you what: as soon as “evolutionary biologists” (hee hee hee! that’s like saying “scientician”) come up with those ever-elusive fossilized transitional species or reach a point where they don’t have to keep rearranging museum exhibits every year or so, then I’ll start to take them as more than pseudo priests for a backwards religion (aka Liberalism).
Here’s where evolution & natural selection are bogus ideas, much less science: Generally speaking, you follow the evidence to validate your hypothesis & advance your thory. This is not the case with Darwiniacs; in fact, they do the exact opposite. They tamper with the evidence to validate their mistaken notions. Even Sagan said that the absence of evidence is not evidence of its absence, but don’t try to tell them that… if you do, you just might get sued by the ACLU.
Then there’s “natural selection”, or “survival of the fittest”. If you have just one working eye, you could see how that idea doesn’t even count as bad science; it’s just pure crap. If one assumes that a more advanced model of the same creature will inevitably subdue the less advanced one, thereby pushing it out of the “circle of life”, then why would certain varieties of animals who compete for the same resources tolerate one another? And without fossilized transitional species to be found ANYWHERE, exactly what do they have to compare the so-called fittest survivors to?
You’d think weapons would have made the list.
[The inclined plane simple machine counts as that. I forget if they have anything guns would fall under. -Ed.]
20. Mind bleach – for posts like this.
Frank, Keep the robot body. I prefer the ladies too much to go that route.
[Funny, that was the first things I thought of when I declared I’d have a robot body. -Ed.]
There’s actually a lot on that list I disagree with. Especially him calling himself a programmer with that #0 crack. That is grounds for an ‘index out of bounds exception’.
19. Troll shoes.
Getting down the Mississippi has never really been a problem. People have been able to float for some time (I believe since the time Archimedes, who invented floating). But I agree steam power is quite useful for getting up the river.
I agree with Frank, the inclined plane is a weapon. People have been slicing, stabbing and impaling people with inclined planes for centuries.
awww yeah, knockin those robot boots
No. 23 was all we needed. Darwin was right! First there was water. Then goo appeared in the water. Soon a cell was present. The cell collected some fellow cells and became a multi cell organism. The organism began to swim. It developed fins and scales and teeth (this took years and years, maybe 35-50). Later this finny, scaley, toothy thing developed little pushers that resembled feet and then the feet grew legs. On a bright and sunny day the swimmy, finny, scaley leggy, footy thing walked up on the beach. Soon thereafter, (anotheer 35-50 years) it managed to climb a tree. It had developed arms and hands and claws and hair. The hair was to keep it warm because nights on the beach were cold and the creature still was not yet warm blooded. After a while (another couple of years) the hairy, toothy critter was spending all of its time swinging from the trees and was now warm blooded. After many, many more years the hairy, swinging, long armed, long legged,toothy tree dwelling form grew a tale. Finally, after spending centuries in the trees it climbed back down and started spending more time on the beach. Gradually it began to walk up right. It learned to speak and leaving it’s tree dwelling roots behind went on to identify itself as a human and participated in achieving the 25 top inovations to mankind. By then it perceived itself as a separate specie but at the same time it never forgot the family that had pioneered the gains in life. The tree dweller, the beach comber, the swimmy thing, and the cell and the goo. It knew that there was a connection and it would be loyal and true to the past as well as planning the future. The new form, the current form still has a tale, but it keeps it stuffed in its pants. The new form was Liberalius Obamanus. It cared. That was a new thing. Life from Liberalius Obananus and beyond was going to be good.
It’s a great article. I think that an innovation I would add is electronic media. From the first magnetized tape, information has become increasingly portable, thus making we, homo docens (to use the taxonomic invention quoted in the article), able to share more information with more people in more remote locations. And bear in mind that magnetic/electronic media stores most of what we read on the internet.
There shall be a few new inventions once The Great and Glorious Leader Obama The Magnificent (May He Live Forever) and they shall be developed in “camps” setup for us! They will involve brain scanning devices along with Manually Insertable Electronic Behavior Modification Devices MIEBMD’s (Cattle Prods) for all of us who have “contributed” to the political discourse during this campaign…
Needs more gun.
So, we only made it to “19. Troll shoes” from #20 ILoveMyFreedoms. During that time, I’ve crossed the great inland sea and back by use of that great invention, the screw propeller, which I hereby declare as:
18. The screw propeller – ’cause without it, I’m stuck on an island in the Soviet State of Washington.
(thanks, ILoveMyFreedoms – all the women here are an inspiration!)
As much as I love my computer, I still rank it below indoor plumbing in great inventions.
Hmmmm… hot water.
17. Soap.
It’s time we stopped hoarding it to ourselves and shared it with the hippies, French, muslims, and other subhumans.
Projectionism. Whats that you say? I can project my mindpower an image of whatever in my mind’s eye and it will go forth and multiply. It will dazzle. (I’m just projecting Obmination). Seriously, projectionism is the newest and the latest in science. I will beam my reality over there and virtual realities will duel it out. Trick or Treat.
I’m John McCain and I’m here to give a lecture to that #26 (there you go again!) commenter (is that what he is? or is he a prophet?). I want you to know, there will be no “manually inserted” devices in my Presidency. There will, however, be across-the-aisle trickery to keep the ship of state afloat. Some may interpret these as anti-Pelosi / anti-Frank devices that autoload and inject themselves into bent-down, socialist worshiping members of Congress who are passing gas-laden earmark bombs that will bankrupt America. I mean this. These will be nasty legislative weapons of mass instruction, era, intrusion into those greasy, over-spending Democrat elitist buttwipes, I mean good friends from across the aisle. To borrow a phrase from my good friend Dick Nixon, I hope I’ve made myself perfectly clear. Now, go out and pursuade some stupid, fence-sitting independents… I mean, well-intentioned Americans… to vote for me!!
author: C.S. Lewis, book: Christian Reflections, essay: The Funeral of a Great Myth.
pages: 230-238.
The most elegant disection of the myth of Evolution I ever read.
“In science, Evolution is a theory about changes; in the Myth it is a fact about Improvements.”
…
“To those brought up on the Myth nothing seems more normal, more natural, more plausible, than that chaos should turn into order, death into life, ignorance into knowledge. And with this we reach the full-blown Myth. It is one of the most moving and satisfying world dramas which have ever been imagined.”
…
“It appeals to every part of me except my reason.”
nuff said.
16. Brautwurst and sourkraut with hot potato salad and lager.
4 of 7 AMEN!
Jimmy…I’ve decided to enter the voting booth on Tuesday and hold my nose and vote for the Aisle Crosser John McCain…sigh… Only because I can’t vote for the dick weed Obama and because Sarah Palin rocks! John McCain, however having voted for the 700 large bailout for the bigs on Wall Street has no more answers than Henry Paulson and is another big government liberal Republican. Fred Thompson is going to have to threaten some head stuffing to get him in line!
15. The Saturn V rocket.
It’s freakin’ huge and by far the coolest thing we’ve ever built.
Thursday Babes at Caption This!
The catapult. Tossing hippies has never been more fun.