Reply #24: I'm for optimism [View All]

[phantom power]

However, just because I can't ever stop myself from playing devil's advocate, I will bring up the history of the library of Alexandria.

At it's peak the scholars there were developing a theory of the atom, a solar system model where the earth and other planets went around the sun, and good calculations of the size of the earth (including the fact that it was spherical).

Then it was all burnt to the goddamned ground, and we suffered through 1500 years of Dark Ages and misguided Aristotelian anti-observational philosphy, before we dug ourselves out.

Of course, we've gotten a lot farther now, and many things are different. I'm just sayin...