# What Is the Most Important Invention In Human History? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2018, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431 "2018-06-20T05:22:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/143 "2018-06-30T13:48:29Z")
Writing, because it preserved other inventions. Antibiotics would rank highly, but if no one wrote about it, it could be forgotten, or not expand beyond a certain area. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/144 "2018-06-30T15:20:04Z")
On language, it was not invented. Or perhaps it was “invented” to the degree that flight, sex, swimming and running were “invented”. Vocal communication (and communication through sound, movement, colour and smell etc.) exists on a continuum of sophistication across various species. No-one first had the thought… “I know, I’ll make a specific grunt and that will represent a rock” So no, Language is not an invention. A _specific_ language can be invented and writing certainly was so that’d be my pick. A combination of written Language and the moveable type/printing press needed to communicate it to all. ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/145 "2018-06-30T16:14:37Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Of course writing is an invention; that’s obvious. But writing is a representation of language, not language itself. And when people started writing, that did not turn language into writing, though many people think it is. Obviously people devise communicative tools (slang, etc) involving language, and writing, as a representation of language, takes on tangential dimensions that are clearly inventive, and apart from speech, but—and this is the real point here–_ **those not are the fundamental characteristics of language that have caused people to mention language in this thread** _. > > People have to be taught how to write, but not how to speak. (Illiterate people can communicate perfectly well in speech). You have to be explicitly taught how to use a typewriter, but not how to use complex language in speech. That’s the aspect of language which people are referring to here, and it’s not something that’s invented. It’s like hair. People invent all kinds of ways to tie up and style their hair, and they grow mustaches, etc., but that doesn’t mean hair is an invention. Hair will grow no matter what you do with it. (Before you take the analogy to an extreme, I realize that children must be raised among speaking adults to learn to speak. They still don’t have to be taught to speak, though.) > > I recognize the appeal of a kind of positivist sentiment that, because language is what “separates us from the beasts,” that it must surely be the result of a purely deliberative and designed effort. However, while some tangential aspects of language are this way, all the research into the human brain, its development, and neuro-linguistics, increasingly is showing otherwise. I do not have much time this morning, but this caught my eye and I would like to comment quickly. (It might be a while before I can reply again.) This is the first thing written on the topic that allowed me to understand the concept you are espousing. People do need to be taught to read, but not to speak, that does seem to make a distinction between the two. In addition, the illiterate can speak perfectly well and sometimes proper language. It gave me pause and made me contemplate; I cannot put myself into the place of someone who is illiterate and truly see the world as they would—but I can imagine and I did know one or two true and actually illiterate people. But if this was all true, you could pick-up an illiterate adult and place them in Japan and without any lessons they would soon be speaking Japanese (but not writing it). Or you could put them into China, or India, or Brazil, or the Spanish speaking countries of South America – and they would naturally be verbally fluent in a short while. I believe your view discounts two things. The first is the elasticity of the mind when we are young and learning both written and spoken language. I suspect you grew up in a very literate household where learning language was extremely easy as it was available and well done and could easily seem innate. The other thing I think you are taking for granted is that you also learned written language at the same time (or shortly after) so all the rules of grammar, etc were absorbed and incorporated into your understanding of spoken language. More likely, your schooling on written language formalized the rules of spoken language you already followed instinctively because you observed them when you learned to speak a short time before. Is it possible you are discounting the learning curve of spoken language because for you it happened so long ago you have forgotten any struggle associated with learning it – and perhaps because it ‘feels’ innate? The thing about it being deliberative does nothing for me. I can readily accept things that are true even if they seem distasteful to me. This argument about deliberateness is below my radar- couldn’t care less. I will say this—if language, spoken or written is an invention or not, I BELIEVE it is a great contributor to humankind because it is above an invention—it is art. (Further since we just discussed it, I do not believe true art is the result of ‘trying to create art’ – I believe that is the worst way to manufacture ‘art’. But I believe art is the desire of the artist to express him or herself and be understood. The longing for human connection, for empathy is what makes it art. By-the-way, this is the first post on language that allows me to understand the opposing view well enough to say: we may have to agree to disagree. Before this it just seemed absurd, now it seems reasonable (just wrong in my view). ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/146 "2018-06-30T16:21:47Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > On language, it was not invented. Or perhaps it was “invented” to the degree that flight, sex, swimming and running were “invented”. > Vocal communication (and communication through sound, movement, colour and smell etc.) exists on a continuum of sophistication across various species. > No-one first had the thought… “I know, I’ll make a specific grunt and that will represent a rock” > > So no, Language is not an invention. A _specific_ language can be invented and writing certainly was so that’d be my pick. A combination of written Language and the moveable type/printing press needed to communicate it to all. This sounds perfectly reasonable and I will contemplate it as I move through my day and the following days. I may begin to start to contemplate considering a new view of spoken language. (Of course I am a very slow thinker. Try not to be stubborn though, and that is a struggle.) ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/147 "2018-07-02T07:22:16Z")
> [@Temporary\_Name](#): > > Have you ever read **Lucifer’s Hammer**? I am thinking you may find it a satisfying read based upon this answer. (If you are old enough to remember the seventies and Johnnie Carson’s version of The Tonight Show—even moreso.) Never read it. I was incredibly stoned when I came up with that whole hydrostatic-water-telegraph idea, and I had never read or heard of any such thing before. Weed makes me smarter, not dumber. I’ve never read anything by Larry Niven or Jerry Pournelle but I know their names and I am aware they are highly regarded fiction authors. I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Lucifer’s Hammer, but it doesn’t say anything about a system like what I described. Is there a summary of it somewhere else? ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/148 "2018-07-02T14:19:52Z")
Those shoes with wheels in the heel so that you can walk normally but then lift your toes a bit and roll along. That, or the beard of bees. ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/149 "2018-07-02T14:21:32Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Never read it. I was incredibly stoned when I came up with that whole hydrostatic-water-telegraph idea, and I had never read or heard of any such thing before. Weed makes me smarter, not dumber. > > I’ve never read anything by Larry Niven or Jerry Pournelle but I know their names and I am aware they are highly regarded fiction authors. I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Lucifer’s Hammer, but it doesn’t say anything about a system like what I described. Is there a summary of it somewhere else? That comment is actually based upon the first, brief paragraph of the post I had quoted (which seems to be in someone else’s name). The last third of the book concerns the possibility of, and at what cost, it makes sense to save a power plant which is the only surviving technological infrastructure for hundreds or thousands of miles - - - and possibly anywhere. Does it make any sense for a medium sized group of subsistence farmers to expend a significant amount of their very limited resources to have unlimited electrical power, especially because there are other small groups of survivors who may band together and take away their farming endeavor which guarantees survival – albeit at approximately iron age levels of technologies. The decision is complicated because time is a huge factor; if they save it now it will last forever, if they wait until it stops running for any reason it will never run again. (They cannot wait one season to fortify first- it is now or never.) They have the ability to recreate all technologies known if they save the power plant. If they don’t, it is likely the semi-literate farming community they will become within a hundred years will burn the technology books for fuel since they do that society no good otherwise and everything will have to develop from scratch. How valuable is electrical power is the question of the day for them. ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/150 "2018-07-02T14:42:07Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > In a way, this seems to say that the greatest invention in history is the invention OF history. I kind of like that. I don’t know if it’s right, but I like it anyway. I am not sure I did Dr. Levitin justice in the post you quoted. He speaks of how easy it is to confuse the human mind – even the best human minds can only keep about five things straight at one time. Without a way to record discoveries everything has to be reinvented every time it is used. The fact that recording our discoveries, thoughts, passions, experiences, etc. created history was sort of incidental to the point I was going for. Thank you for adding poetry to the idea. The idea that those who do not know history are doomed to (make the same damn mistakes over and over and over) repeat it becomes quite significant. That could not matter if we didn’t know we had a history, thank you for putting that together for me. The book I am quoting is quite thick and thoughtful; please don’t take my word for it. Levitin speaks for himself much better than I possibly could, and I think he is worth the read. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/151 "2018-07-02T14:46:56Z")
> [@Temporary\_Name](#): > > That comment is actually based upon the first, brief paragraph of the post I had quoted (which seems to be in someone else’s name). It was me - I changed my name. (See MPSIMS.) ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2018, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/152 "2018-07-02T15:22:22Z")
Farming. Growing food. That was the first time we weren’t at the mercy of the environment. That was the first time we understood that we weren’t just wildlife. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/153 "2018-07-03T05:13:01Z")
Beer. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2018, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/154 "2018-07-03T05:26:55Z")
I personally think it’s software. Isn’t it interesting that we created an analogue of DNA (I.e. an instruction set) to run our world just like DNA runs our bodies? ---
**Author:** ![Temporary\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Temporary\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Temporary_Name)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2018, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431/155 "2018-07-06T06:56:00Z")
Tonight I saw something that applies to this thread. It was on in the background while I was doing something else and I heard a comment that surprised me. It was someone I would consider at the minimum an authoritative source give HIS answer to the OP about 26 and a quarter minutes into a discussion. At approximately 27:20 he flatly states it is the most important . . . . . discovery of all time. Everything he claims it effects, and/or lends understanding to has been listed here. Yes, it is not an invention, but its discovery has revolutionized our lives within a relatively short period of time, and it is the foundational science behind all the gizmos people meant when they suggested (too narrowly) 'technology'. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-important-invention-in-human-history/816431.md?page=7)