Are we going backwards in evolution?

[pawsies]

When I think back to human history we have made some incredible feats. From the discovery of various things to inventions and architecture.
It seems like the modern day and future will be not as impressive as we rely so much on technology and the practical skills are being lost in future generations. How many of us Google 'how to..' or look up YouTube for how to do something?
Whereas the ancient Greeks and other ancestors managed to invent or build things without resorting to technological means.
Technology is of course an incredible feat in itself but are we relying on it too much to teach ourselves and our family things that a community would do together in the past? Or is it just a new form of community?
Then we have social media which is creating a whole new generation of people obsessing over appearance and what people think of them. Very few practical skills being learnt there.

It just seems like we are going backwards compared to the previous feats that our society has accomplished.

What do you think?

I think you should have posted this in Chat or somewhere more appropriate.

Evolution has no direction, it just fits organisms for the world in which they find themselves through natural selection (ie culling). It's a process with lots of natural wastage. Ditto societal evolution.

Who do you think created technology? The last 50 years have seen more scientific and technological advances than ever. I was born in the 60s when tv was black and white, there were no computers and many houses had outdoor toilets and no central heating. Phones were attached to the wall. And my dad had no more idea how to build a shelf than I do.
In fact many more people can build a shelf because they have access to youtube videos. And it's people making those videos, not machines.
People build on previous knowledge. There will always be narcissistic people, that's nothing new. But there are also more people creating, discovering and innovating than ever before.

From the title of this thread I thought you meant we were all losing thumbs and devolving into primates or something...

I disagree. Did you know at the height of the industrial revolution they believed they’d invented everything they thought humanity had ever needed? They couldn’t have even fathomed inventions of the next 50-100 years, I’m sure we will be the same.
But equally, I think your arguments are simplistic. Social media may have a superficial edge but it also means you can talk to your family on the other side of the world in real time. Is that not good for community and relationships?

Technology is nothing to do with evolutions. Ancient Greeks = Modern Greeks from an evolutionary perspective.

Put that wheelbarrow down, OP - you know nothing about technology.

I think the OP has a perfectly good understanding of evolution. Culture and tool use, are just as much evolutionary adaptations as a poseable thumb.

We probably are becoming less physically skilled in some respects.

However, we are almost certainly gaining other skills. An ability to deal with huge amounts of information and a far greater cultural flexibility than ever before.

What do you think the Greeks invented without technology?

@bsc

That question doesn't make any sense.

YANBU. Lots of people in this country are thick gammons. I can’t really imagine what caused them to evolve like that.

What do you think a book is? Civilisation leapt forward when we acquired the ability to store our knowledge in a permanent form outside people's heads. Our capacity to increase our sum of knowledge leapt again when we developed the ability to store knowledge in so many format digitally. Also, learned skills have nothing to do with "evolution".

Absolutely.

People can't decide whether or not to eat something, not eat some, go to a wedding, etc without asking mumsnet

Nothing wrong with YouTube how to... videos. I've managed to do loads from tutorials on there from doing a tv aerial to making sugar roses. It's a great tool.

@ChainsawBear

"Also, learned skills have nothing to do with "evolution".

Can you explain this? As I said earlier, culture and tool use are evolutionary adaptations.

Religion was one. It is now less useful now we have science etc

We've used technology to invent a global communal prosthetic memory. I consider that a step forward not a step backwards.

@bingbangbing the Greeks did use technology, just not electronic technology, is my point. A lever is a form of technology.

Or the Borg, depending on how you look at it.

Star Trek reference btw.

Our ability to learn complex skills is something we attained through evolution. But we didn't "evolve" an inherent ability to darn our own socks or whatever it is the OP thinks we aren't doing any more. Nor have we lost it. Nor does evolution take place on the kind of timescale OP seems to think.

If anything, we evolved with a strong focus on minimising effort, which makes it perfectly sensible to not bother retaining information on skills when it's instantly accessible and retained on the internet.

Did you know at the height of the industrial revolution they believed they’d invented everything they thought humanity had ever needed?

From a technology point of view - they had!
Humans didn't need more than what was available at the height of the industrial revolution. We just wanted more. And look at the state of the planet, because of that want.

I think development now is going to be improving on what we already have:

more sustainable methods through necessity not desire
development of medicines using resources we haven't thought of yet
etc

there will be things that people now think are ridiculous, my great grandfather told my grandfather that one day people woul routinely fly abroad to different places because they wanted to see what they were like. Everybody thought he was stupid to suggest such a thing back in the 1910s/1920s.

I'm sure there were plenty of thick ancient Greeks who couldnt invent or build stuff too.

I dont think we have gone backwards, society has just changed. If we had to go back to doing things without technology people would be able to, they havent physically lost the ability we just arent using it as much.

@messolini9 well yes but with that argument you’re suggesting we also don’t ‘need’ things like cancer drugs, vaccines or women surviving childbirth.

That's not how evolution works. It can't go 'backwards'.

And if people look up how to do something on the internet, it's simply because they haven't been taught it and probably never needed to do it before. The skills that we need to get through our daily lives are different than they were 100 years ago, never mind millions of years ago. It doesn't mean that people (and I'm guessing you mean young people) are worse or less intelligent or whatever the fuck it is you're trying to say.

@Mordred
😂 what she said! 😂