Even in the last century, scientific research was mainly reduced to how to improve the material side of a person's life - to provide him with a sufficient amount of provisions and the necessary benefits of civilization. But already now scientific progress has taken on somewhat different forms, and if a certain share of scientific discoveries is devoted to solving global problems of the planet as a whole, then most of the new technologies are designed to provide people not with their daily bread, but with convenience, and even excess.
However, along with these very conveniences, a person develops a consumer attitude towards life, and the desire to strain and think disappears. What for? Why add "two and two" in your head, when you can count on the calculator, which everyone has on their phone. Why walk three hundred meters if there is a bus, and in order not to break away from your favorite game on the computer, you can order food directly to your home - and you don't need to do anything.
According to studies recently carried out by experts from Europe, it was found that even 100-200 years ago a person was smarter than now. The experiment was based on the method of mental chronometry. Due to the fact that similar studies were carried out in Europe since 1884, scientists had the opportunity to compare old and new results. The essence of the experiment is extremely simple: a person had to react as soon as possible to the lighting of a light bulb and press a special button. The sooner the reaction is, the higher the ability to process information.
It turned out that in comparison with the old data, the level of reaction speed (in this case, it was weighed against IQ), decreased every 10 years by 1.23 points. And to date, this "mental" difference between the previous and modern generations is 14 points - a disappointing result. IQ studies of different generations have been carried out repeatedly. For example, the Norwegian researcher Jon Martin Sundet and his colleague from Denmark Thomas Tisdale conducted independent research on the intelligence of modern young people. The conclusion turned out to be the same: since about 1990 the development of mankind has "stalled", and today the intellectual level of a person has fallen by an average of 25%.
Gerald Crabtree, a geneticist at Stanford University, is convinced that as a result of the fall in competition between people for the necessary conditions for survival, the accumulation of genetic mutations has begun, which leads to the "dulling" of abilities that are already unnecessary for a person. And if earlier a wrong decision would have cost the ancient hunter his life, now the disgraced worker is at most threatened with dismissal. Therefore, there is simply no need to “reinvent the wheel”. I'm sure that if the average resident of Athens from 1000 BC. e. suddenly found himself among us, he would become one of the brightest representatives of modern society - with a sharp mind, excellent memory, a huge number of ideas, "says Crabtree.
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Nevertheless, have scientists thought about this, who for years have been collecting knowledge bit by bit in order to bring it together into a single brilliant theory? And has the progress of science always brought a serene future to descendants? Let's turn to recent history.
The beginning of the twentieth century. The newly minted professor at the University of Berlin, Max Planck, put forward the theory of quantum energy propagation. As a result, Albert Einstein put forward on the basis of Planck's assumptions the quantum theory of the photoelectric effect, and another promising scientist, Niels Bohr, proposed a fundamentally new model of the atom - with electrons circling around nuclei. In fact, it is Planck that we owe the subsequent breakthroughs in nuclear energy, genetic engineering and electronics.
In 1923, the French de Broglie put forward the hypothesis of particle-wave dualism. That is, electrons can propagate in two ways - both as ordinary "chatsits" and as waves. Already by 1926, physicist from Austria Schrödinger gave a material description of de Broglie waves. Quantum mechanics began to develop in rapid leaps. As a result, the first superconductors, lasers, transistors, computers, mobile phones appeared. The flip side of these technologies is the emergence of laser weapons of enormous power, the gambling computer business annually draws thousands of people into psychological dependence, and many no longer imagine themselves without a mobile phone - although twenty years ago people got along just fine without it.
1920 Ernest Resenford put forward an unusual theory about the presence of certain neutral particles in the atomic nucleus, which he named neutrons. Members of the British Association for the Advancement of Sciences were skeptical about this theory. But 12 years later, in 1932, the Joliot-Curies took a step towards the discovery of artificial radioactivity. Result: the use of radioisotopes in the scientific field, the development of atomic energy, the atomic war in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
1978 The first test-tube baby was born - a girl named Louise. By 2007, with the help of IVF, more than a million people who previously did not have a chance to become parents had babies. The reverse side of the coin: the experiments use embryonic stem cells, which raises doubts about the humanity of such experiments. In addition, during artificial insemination, several embryos are implanted into the woman's uterus, and if the attachment is successful, if the woman does not want to give birth to two or more children, the "unnecessary" embryos are removed.
Through many years of efforts of British scientists in 1996, the world-famous first clone-Dolly sheep was born. At the moment, by cloning it is already possible to obtain clones from clones. True, experiments with human embryos are prohibited, but who can guarantee that such experiments are not carried out in secret laboratories?
Science in itself does not carry either evil or good - what it will serve, people decide. However, paradoxically, the most famous scientific prize in the world, the Nobel Prize, was founded by a man who can be called an "evil genius". As you know, Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. The only "peaceful" use of this substance is in mines and mines, where it removes unnecessary layers of rocks. Nobel's invention marked the beginning of the mass production of lethal explosives.
Well, and the huge fortune that Alfred earned on dynamite, despite the protests of the legitimate heirs, was bequeathed to the future geniuses of science. It is a pity that the prize was awarded not only to altruistic scientists. For example, the Nobel Prize winner was Fritz Haber, a chemist who created nitrogen fertilizers, and at the same time chemical weapons (he lived during the First World War). His own wife in 1915. shot herself in protest before his experiments with poisonous gases. But Haber, who believed that: "In peacetime, the scientist belongs to the world, but during the war he belongs to his country," on the same day he went to the front to observe the tests of toxic chemicals on Russian soldiers.
Of course, great inventors were often left with spokes. Who knows what Russian geneticists would have reached now if, on the orders of Stalin, one of the most talented geneticists, Nikolai Vavilov, had not been killed in prison as a distributor of harmful science? Did the leadership of the USSR guess what results this could lead to, or was it done out of thoughtlessness and envy? Few people know that under Nicholas II, a special commission was created, which was called upon to besiege excessively zealous scientists.
And precisely because of this, the Russian army was technically backward, since the emperor did not approve of "inhuman" types of weapons, such as a machine gun. By the way, the inventor of the machine gun, Richard Gatling, while designing it, was guided exclusively by good goals: he believed that one man with a machine gun would replace dozens of soldiers with guns, and the number of human losses would decrease. The idea of a machine gun was taken by Gatling from a project he had invented … a seeder. And here is an extract from Scientific American, which published an obituary after Gatling's death: “This man was unmatched in kindness and warmth. It seemed to him that if the war became even more terrible, then the peoples would finally lose the desire to resort to arms."
Nowadays, the use of new materials technologies often has "dark sides", which manufacturing companies prefer to keep silent about. For example, the same 25th frame is widely used in commercials for the purpose of programming, the indispensable and so convenient Teflon in the kitchen emits toxic gases when heated strongly, but a lot of articles have been written about the harmful effects of mobile phones.
Summing up, we can say that scientific progress always has both light and dark sides. But which of them people prefer - it's up to them to decide.