A hundred years ago, if one said that white peoples were biologically superior to “coloured races” - few would have found fault with such a statement. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, for instance, is full of such views, by the respected scolars of that day. Of course today, such views are marginalized and seen as very dangerous, in light of what those views have excused happened in Nazi Germany, South Africa, and even the American South.
I was also widely acceptable a hundred years ago to state that women should not be able to vote, and that homosexuals were - at best - considered to be mentally ill. Actual mentally ill people were often essentially locked up and hidden away (or in the 1930’s or 1940’s, lobotomized).
A hundred years ago a swamp was something to be drained to make ‘productive’. The destruction of forests to make agricultural land and settlements was still seen by all but a few people as ‘progress’. Teaching evolution was grounds for firing at many schools. People could be prosecuted for mailing information about birth control devices.
All of those things may seem rather strange or quaint today. But are there some beliefs that many of us see as part of normal life today that will be seen in the same way in 100 years? Most of us like to think we have overcome the prejudices of the past, but I am sure the average person of 1903 did not view himself or herself as particularly prejudiced or bigoted.
I saw on cnn that humans and chimps share 99.4 percent of their DNA. That’s pretty close. My guess if that we’re going to have to extend all laws and rights to chimps.
The belief that psychological illness can be cured by merely talking to people. I suspect the new “Psychovirus” theories, combined with a greater awareness of genetics & neurochemistry, will cause modern psychology to be discarded as nonsense as silly as astrology.
I suppose I could be a smartass and say “the belief that reality TV constitutes entertainment”, but I won’t. Oh. Whoops.
I meet a surprisingly large number of well-educated people who nevertheless think that being exposed to a low ambient temperature will somehow result in your getting a cold.
The whole concept of smoking seems to be on the way out. Placing burning plant matter in one’s mouth and inhaling the combustion products? Bizarre.
Maybe the idea that incarceration is the only valid solution for most societal problems.
Bit hard to say otherwise. There are all sorts of strange beliefs that have persisted for centuries in the face of all logic. Hell, enormous numbers of people sincerely believe that the flesh of pigs should not be eaten because it is “unclean”, whatever that means.
Revtim:I hope creationism is considered a quaint mythology by then.
Judging on past performance, the odds are pretty good. After all, when the heliocentric hypothesis emerged as serious scientific theory in Europe in the sixteenth century, quite a few people objected that it couldn’t be true because it would invalidate the Bible. Many schools taught geocentrism well into the eighteenth century to avoid heliocentrism’s perceived “irreligiousness”. Nowadays, though, it’s pretty hard to find anybody who thinks that heliocentrism contradicts the Bible.
So, since serious hypotheses about evolution emerged in the nineteenth century, given another several decades of the normal human adjustment process, most people by then will likely be genuinely comfortable with the idea that evolution doesn’t contradict the Bible.
I think people will get over their fear of nuclear power, its going to take some time, but all of our ideas seem to imply that the human race has a whole is getting smarter.
I hope embryonic stem cells are accepted as penicillin too, but again, this implies that humans become smarter and can move away from religion…
Ah, thank goodness we’ve escaped the bad old days of Freudianism and psychoanalysis. Let the fresh new days of “chemical imbalances” and purely biological causes of mental illnesses that’ll be found any day now!
Except that we’ve been over that ground as well. The pendulum swings…
A hundred years ago people thought it was OK to deny other people the right to live somewhere or work somewhere on account of their race. Thankfully that is not acceptable today.
I hope in 100 years time it will not be acceptable to deny people any rights, including the right to live/work where ever they please, on account of their nationality. I certainly already find it very immoral and something which should be endded ASAP.
Ok, here are some of my predictions:
Fundamentalism will be unheard of, while religion is still present in society it has taken a back seat to other pursuits. Religions will be replaced by philosiphies and ways people look at life. They will be much less strict and be concerned with ethics rather than retribution.
Vegitarianism will become more common, soy and new engineered crops will become prominent replacing the meat industry. While their was some experiementation with growing meat without a live animal it will fall through in favor of simple genetically engineered meat like crops.
The fear surrounding nuclear power will alleviate and nuclear will become one of the largest and most common power sources on the planet. Reactors will be cleaner and more efficient and waste disposal will be better regualted and controlled, leaving little margin for error.
The dependance on oil will be almost gone, with most oil going toward plastic production rather than fuel. While gas cars are still common electric, hyrbird, and alternatively powered cars will be in the majority. People will wonder why we ever drove around in explosive metal cages.
The nuclear family will be seen as the Industrial-Revolution-inspired anachronism that it is and the accepted types of families will consist of a much wider range of possibilities, such as legitimized same-sex relationships, non-stigmatized single parenthood, and polyamory, as well as the concept of the chosen family.
Along with that, hopefully, will be a more open attitude toward sex. We’ve come a long way in the last 50 years, but we’re still awfully narrow.
