What's The Most Important Invention In Human History?

[THUNDER HANDS]

Poll question: What's The Most Important Invention In Human History?

And the Magic Rat sayeth to the masses, go forth and vote!

:)

[Mr. McD]

1. Fire was not invented

It occurs naturally.

[THUNDER HANDS]

21. you know what I mean

the harnessing of fire, the ability to make it.

:)

[GOPisEvil]

2. The printing press. It brought learning to the masses.

[Snow]

32. And Korea invented it.....

looooonnngggg before Gutenberg...movable type, the whole nine yards. Buddhist scripture instead of Christian.

[GOPisEvil]

37. Hmm...(in Carson voice)...I did not know that.

I'll have to look into that.

[laconicsax]

57. I thought it only brought the Bible to the masses.

It may have eventually brought learning to the masses, but I think that hasn't happened for some time--in any form.

[On the Road]

3. Does Language Count?

[ixion]

4. you should change the subject to 'discovery' rather than invention

In truth, I don't think we really invent anything. You could argue, from a Quantum perspective, that everything already exists and we just come across it in our travels. ;-)

[Systematic Chaos]

5. My answer: The discovery of the Pythagorean Theorem

without which, most of our modern inventions wouldn't exist.

[Ediacara]

15. but could we have mathematics

without written language?

[Systematic Chaos]

26. Most likely not,

but then again, humans had some kind of verbal or written communication for many thousands of years before we began to discover advanced mathematics. Furthermore, language is more a product of our evolution than an "invention" IMO, and therefore not an item I would have considered for this list.

[Ediacara]

41. I meant writing, not language

n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

52. The Incas did.

Read about the quipu:

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Inca_mathematics.html

[Carl21014]

6. You left off the best one!

The refrigerator! I found out after Isabel when the power went out what it's like not to have ice or a way to preserve your food.

[commander bunnypants]

13. I hear ya bub

Isabel kicked my ass


DDDQM

[alonso_quijano]

7. Agriculture

No agriculture--no permanent human settlements, no cities, no division of labor (beyond hunting vs. gathering), no writing, no civilization!

[el_gato]

17. sounds good to me

also no cancer, no war, and no tv

[Ediacara]

22. uh....

war has been around since, oh before the human-chimp evolutionary divergence, and cancer has been present for 100 million years...

[Ediacara]

19. good one, on the same level as written language

probably the one and two most important inventions in human history

[Snow]

33. Whooops - there's a third way....

the herding societies often did very well for themselves. The few left are still pretty okay.

[Vitruvius]

43. And agriculture was invented by WOMEN.

n/t

[Brucey]

8. The computer.

The wheel was necessary to get things rolling, the printing press spread the word, but the computer revolution put us all in a box.

[Ediacara]

9. written language and education

although education clearly existed before the invention of writing, the passing on of a body of knowledge exceeding your memory was monumental to the creation of every other invention listed save for fire and the wheel. Can you imagine a society without the internet? yes, I can. Can you imagine a society without TV? yes I can. BUT, can you imagine a society without written language? Ya, I can, but we're all a) living in caves hunting and gathering or b) slaves.

[Snow]

35. Or we're living in a Celtic society, farmers,

getting the news and history and whatever else from bards and minstrels.
Interesting trivium: Homer's writings were orginally sung. Only way you can remember something like the Iliad, or Beowulf, or Gilgamesh, or the Bobdignagian or whatever it's called, is by having music to go with it.

[The Magistrate]

54. Writing, Sir, Certainly

Along with its close, and probably earlier cousin, bureaucracy.

Writing was originally not a tool of expression, but of book-keeping, to track collection of taxes and disbursements of rations and pensions. It might well be said its purpose originally was to facilitate slavery.

As with so many things, it rather got out of hand, and escaped the purpose of its creators.

[leftofthedial]

10. the flush toilet

changed everything

[leftofthedial]

11. the birth control pill

was huge

[Robb]

38. I was going to say the pill, also

...You know, as a tie between the pill and the salad shooter.

:evilgrin:

[fortyfeetunder]

48. How about contraception in general?

It's just too bad it failed for the * family!!!

[Padraig18]

12. The chisel plow

It turned farming from a largely semi-subsistence endeavor into one in which one man/family could feed multiple families, freeing those people to do other work, etc. .

[HereSince1628]

14. The latrine and potty training...

civilization as we know it would otherwise be impossible!

[mac56]

18. I was about to nominate "plumbing"!

LOL!

[soothsayer]

39. and, um, special products for women to use monthly (eom)

[VOX]

16. Got to be the wheel...

Without it, most of the others on the list wouldn't have worked or couldn't have been effectively delivered in quantity.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

60. No shit. and I'm amazed few here seem to appreciate that.... or IOW:

got disc?

[Shrek]

20. Remote control

Otherwise we'd have only one channel.

[kcwayne]

23. Sex

No sex, no humans, quick extinction. Of course fundamentalists have been trying for centuries to exterminate humanity by making sex a mortal sin, but what do they know?

[uberotto]

24. I think that the invention of ...

God, or religon in general has had the greatest influence on human history.

Not really sure if most people would consider this as a human "invention" though.

[Racenut20]

25. Breasts

[einsteins stein]

27. Antisceptics, Antibiotics

No single thing that I can think of has improved the quality of life, all around the world, more than these.

[TXlib]

28. Beer

Yes, beer! The same substance that now causes drunken frat boys to uproot signs at 3 in the morning gave birth to civilisation itself!

---

Beer Brewing Paralleled the Rise of Civilization

[Dover]

29. Ummmmmm..............................The Poll?

Can't imagine how we ever lived without them.:eyes:

[Dookus]

30. ya left it out...

the transistor

[dpbrown]

31. The Light Bulb

It's not on your list, required "invention" rather than just "discovery" like some of the others in the list, and its invention made the things that came after it both possible and necessary.

[bloom]

34. soap

[SmileyBoy]

36. Electricity.

Without the creation of the process of electrical currents, we wouldn't be able to develop appliances, computers, etc.

Thomas Edison started the modern development of technological evolution with that light bulb.

[Fight_n_back]

40. PIZZA

or the brass pole strippers use, either one...

[foreigncorrespondent]

42. I have to say the Internet.

After all, with out the Internet I would never have met the love of my life (Sappho). Nor would we have ever been able to build up a DU family.

[Ellen Forradalom]

44. Contraceptives and painkillers

No way we could get by without them.

[ironflange]

45. Sliced bread!

Well, somebody had to say it!

[PittPoliSci]

46. The Big GULP

it seriously pleases me no matter how many I drink. wheel? fuck that I'll walk to 711.

[scarlet_owl]

47. Someone has to say it.

Moon Pies.

[FloridaJudy]

49. The "Germ theory"

Once we humans discovered that almost all infectious diseases were caused by microbes, there was no turning back.

We no longer buried most of our children. Women rarely died after surviving childbirth. We discovered vaccines and sanitation that kept most of us from dying early of preventable causes. We went on to discover antibiotics and antivirals.

On the other hand, this discovery has allowed us to multiply WAY beyond the ability of this planet to support our numbers!

The NEXT best thing to happen, was the discovery of how to control our fertility.

We need the second to mitigate the effects of the first!

O.K. I'll get off my soap-box now...

[Uzybone]

50. The wheel by far

nothing else comes close. Most influential invention may come to be TV (or more specifically the cathode ray tube) however, it has totally changed the human experience for most people.

[Xithras]

51. Metallurgy

Nearly every other invention listed here depends on mankinds ability to extract, purify, and shape metals. Before we figured that trick out, we were just smart monkeys. The discovery of metalworking led to EVERYTHING we take for granted today.

[TreasonousBastard]

53. Refining metal from ore..

bronze, iron, steel...

Metal gave us real tools.

Concrete's another one-- building without just piling rocks up. Along with the arch, the Romans gave us modern construction.

The fork-- civilization begins with table manners.

Other than that, I'll go with pizza.

[populistmom]

55. Decent birth control

It frees up 1/2 the people of the world to pursue dreams otherwise unattainable (and still have a little fun).

[Spirochete]

56. Cheese in a spray can

n/t

[Kenneth ken]

58. I had to choose

fire - most everything else follows from the ability to control fire.

fire --> smelting ore --> printing press

as one example.

[LosinIt]

59. Hands down it's .....DU!!!

Allowing people of like minds to find each other and keep our sanity while all those around us are losing their's and blaming it on us.

[dolo amber]

61. Fire!! Yes, YES, FIRE!!

Huh huh....fire's cool...yeah...huh huh...huh :D