What makes you think we've advanced in a straight line? We're surrounded by the ruins of lost civilizations, who often built things we would find very challenging to reproduce even with our modern machinery, if we could reproduce it at all. It seems much more likely that human civilization has advanced and been knocked back multiple times in multiple places, and we're currently at a high point.
We're probably the first ones to figure out how to use coal and oil to generate power and do far more work than can be achieved with animal and slave labor. I suspect that's the key to how high our high point is. But I also suspect that there are other sciences where we're not as advanced as our predecessors, and maybe even some we haven't discovered yet.
We're probably the first ones to figure out how to use coal and oil to generate power and do far more work than can be achieved with animal and slave labor. I suspect that's the key to how high our high point is. But I also suspect that there are other sciences where we're not as advanced as our predecessors, and maybe even some we haven't discovered yet.