195,000 Years To Invent The Shovel

[Yozavan]

Why did it take humans 195,000 years to Invent the shovel?

According to Wikipedia, shoulder blades from an ox were used as shovels 5-8 thousand years ago. Bronze shovels came much later. Biologists say humans have been doing their thing for 200,000 years

Possible considerations for debate:

1) Perhaps our racoonian ancesters were in shell shock after surviving the dinosaurian drama, thus PTSD was inherited by their future primate progeny.

2) We live in a simulation and such questions are futile.

3) Satan successfully thwarted every previous attempt to Invent a shovel.

4) Science only has two centuries under its belt, and shouldn't be taken seriously yet.

5) Shovels are exceedingly hard to invent.

[Yozavan]

Premise 1 is not without merit. Freudian psychology posits that: species inherit unconscious memories, thoughts, and urges. Perhaps, it took 195,000 years to overcome our fear of the ground. This fear protected our ancesters from dinosaurs for millions of years.

Premise 2 is not without merit. Simulation theory will always make our heads spin around.

Premise 3 seems odd. Why would Satan hate shovels? Lest it be argued he viewed the ground as sacred.

Premise 4 seems prudent, unless we grant science exempt from evolutionary progress, whereby it will gradually improve over time. Would seem imprudent to consider science inerrant de facto.

Premise 5 seems unreasonable. 195,000 years of contemplating the use of hands, and the concept of handling , coupled with the perplexing potentiality of the ever present riddle: what is below my feet?

[Purple Knight]

Possibility #6, people were using shovels before then, and they weren't using something that preserved well, like wood, or wasn't obviously a shovel. All the wood that existed in 5000BC has probably long ago rotted away. Or it got quite a lot of wear very quickly, and ended up in the fireplace.

I would think people used digging sticks since ever. That's technically a shovel and you're never going to find one and say aha the shovel was invented. Maybe there are wooden shovel artefacts, and we haven't found them yet.

So basically it's a sub-case of option 4.

[Yozavan]

If your argument is it took 195,000 years to make a good shovel, and all previous shovels were no bueno, .

Or if your argument is it took 195,000 years to discover that somebody lost a shovel. I know you didn't say that, but I was saving it for somebody. Cuz it funny

You're right about sticks. Perhaps, we dug with sticks or even just our hands for 190,000 years. Such primitive digging wouldn't suggest anything constructive was going on, other then some bug foraging. Maybe we ate bugs for 190,000 years.

The problem with that is we inherited the ability to hunt, forage, make fires and cook meat from our primate ancestors. Thus we started our 200,000 year journey off well equiped. The primates passed us a great baton. I simply have a hard time believing it took 195,000 years to discover agriculture.

If science said primates transitioned into moder humans 10-20,000 years ago, I wouldn't hesitate to believe it, but 200,000 years!!!

[1213]

Why did it take humans 195,000 years to Invent the shovel?

That is a very good question. Obviously someone invented it 200,000 years ago, but thought it would lead to nuclear war eventually and therefore buried the idea.

[Yozavan]

Why did it take humans 195,000 years to Invent the shovel?

That is a very good question. Obviously someone invented it 200,000 years ago, but thought it would lead to nuclear war eventually and therefore buried the idea.

Fortunately, more and more nonreligious people are starting to question the absurdity of science. Its no longer the fundamentalist's problem. Soon, religious people can chill and let the rest fight this asinine nonsense

[1213]

Why did it take humans 195,000 years to Invent the shovel?

That is a very good question. Obviously someone invented it 200,000 years ago, but thought it would lead to nuclear war eventually and therefore buried the idea.

Fortunately, more and more nonreligious people are starting to question the absurdity of science. Its no longer the fundamentalist's problem. Soon, religious people can chill and let the rest fight this asinine nonsense

Hopefully

However I have to say, I think pure science is not bad, the problem is the scientism, where some beliefs are called scientific facts, although they are mainly wishful thinking, not something that can be shown to be true.

[Purple Knight]

I think pure science is not bad, the problem is the scientism, where some beliefs are called scientific facts, although they are mainly wishful thinking, not something that can be shown to be true.

People need to realise that "trust the experts" is a form of this. It appalls me to a pukeworthy degree that science went from the likes of Galileo being imprisoned by "the experts" for making real observations, because religion, to a new set of "experts" we must now put our faith in, because science.

I want a new word that means actually don't do this crud. One that can never be appropriated by a new set of experts to support enforced blind faith. Taking suggestions!

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Yozavan in post #1]

1) Perhaps our racoonian ancesters were in shell shock after surviving the dinosaurian drama, thus PTSD was inherited by their future primate progeny.

How would this have anything to do with shovels?

2) We live in a simulation and such questions are futile.

Until it is demonstrated that we live in a simulation, this conjecture can be discarded.

3) Satan successfully thwarted every previous attempt to Invent a shovel.

This one can also be discarded until it is demonstrated that "Satan" is not imaginary.

4) Science only has two centuries under its belt, and shouldn't be taken seriously yet.

Science has been practiced a lot longer than just 200 years (eg. Aristotle died 2346 years ago, and Isaac Newton died 297 years ago). But it certainly can be taken seriously now.

5) Shovels are exceedingly hard to invent.

Modern shovels use metal for the business end, and until smelting was invented a metal shovel would not have been possible. Wood or bone shovels would not have been nearly as useful and limited to softer dirt, but Homo habilis some 2.5 million years ago made stone tools that were likely used for digging (hand axes) and also used "digging sticks" made of wood or bone. So I'd argue that the time it took to invent a shovel was due to the time it took evolve the intelligence needed to figure out that this combination was more useful for digging than a simple rock, stick or piece of bone, as well as the time it took to develop the technology needed to form a useful scoop section and afix it to a handle of some sort.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Yozavan in post #6]

Fortunately, more and more nonreligious people are starting to question the absurdity of science.

And fortunately, most people can still tell the difference between pseudo-science nonsense, conspiracy theories, etc., and actual science of the type that we take advantage of every day to make our lives better in so many ways and fight diseases, etc. If enough people appear who think all of science is absurd and put an end to it, we're doomed. Stone age technology won't cut it in today's world.