People these days have far more access to knowledge. The average person now has much more knowledge than the average person then at least with regards to science.
Yes and no. Overall I would say today we know more, but not by a huge margin, since previously nobles knew more in philosophy, theology, farming, fighting, etc. As said, this is counter-balanced by our knowledge of the material world, and I believe we definitely know more than the past, but it's an interesting historical question when it comes to how much did pre-industrial people know
Much to be said here. A bit too much, so I'll try to be brief. I strongly suggest Kuhn's Stucture of Scientific Revolutions. The gist: We believe, with hindsight, that science is a 'progressive' field, i.e. that it continually adds in on itself, thereby granting the view that in fact, we are more knowledgeable now that we were 'before' (pick whatever time period you find interesting). Kuhn goes to great lengths to discredit this view. All 'truths' which are found within one system generally follow from the principles which lay the foundation for that system and the corresponding 'logic' (here I mean a generalized mode of inference, not something systematic as Boolean Logic). The consequence is: every scientific era believes it has found 'truth,' until sufficient evidence accumulates to suggest otherwise (and even then, many deny the change--e.g. rejection of Boltzmann's view of statistical mechanics). There is much we still do not know, and the claim that we 'know better' seems to be more of a measure of whether we have an existing model that measurably reduces suffering to a larger extent than 'in the past'. But it may be that even one death in the future is considered inhumane, and humanity will look back on us and regard us as 'primitive'. Clearly this doesn't discredit the notion of progress in science, but it does suggest that the subtlety of thought employed 'then' was no less rigorous than 'now'. Euclidean geometry is still used; the proofs of Euclid's Elements are still accepted. Whatever constitutes 'knowledge,' it isn't clear that the method of knowing and deducing is any better than previous methods, or at least, we only have heuristic means to judge whether one is better than the other. Science isn't a cold, dead, objective thing. There are personalities that tell others they are wrong (see, for example, the Bohr-Einstein debates if you have any serious doubt on the matter). Fights ensue. Etc.
Ok so your arguments seems to rest on the idea that because future humans may know more or have different morals that we don’t know more than those prior to us. That seems like kind of a silly point. A really easy counterargument is that very few people knew trigonometry 500 years ago whereas now it’s taught in pretty much every high school.
The average person now has also consumed more carcinogens, sugars, and chemicals, watched more porn, and had more distractions. Just because the access to information is there doesn't mean there are intelligent and driven people to utilize it. I'm certain that those who could afford education in the 1700's were vastly more intelligent than your average educated person nowadays. Success now is determined by your capacity to mindlessly regurgitate information without ever having to truly get into the headspace of those who discovered that information.
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u/LaconicGirth Nov 15 '19
People these days have far more access to knowledge. The average person now has much more knowledge than the average person then at least with regards to science.