What is the greatest achievement by mankind so far?

[CrystalAce]

Ever since mankind was evolved, humans have been pursuing to achieve more in their life. As the most intelligent and creative individuals of all species, we, humans have the potential to achieve many great things in our life.

There have been many great achievements in our human race's history. However, we all have our own definition of which is the greatest achievement of all so far. For some of us, this greatest achievement can be the things or objects that we can see in our day to day lives or that we've heard of from distant lands. While, for some of us, this greatest achievement can be just some ideologies or philosophies that has helped us to run our daily lives and made civilization possible.

So,
What do you think is the greatest achievement by mankind so far?


I believe that the greatest achievement by mankind so far is, the ability to reason. Though, we have not achieved perfection in this ideology, it has still enabled us to evolve our way of thinking.

All things are logically explanable. It is a fact. However there are still many things in this world which are still not explanable. We are not able to reason fo their existence or occurance and so we term them as "paranormal" or just introduce religious or social beliefs to justify their presence.

Even just some hundreds of years ago, people did not know what was "gravity" or how to define it. Not until, Sir Isaac Newton postulated theories behind it and proven it, that people slowly started to reason logically behind this phenomenon.

Likewise, people have established many different reasonings behind almost everything that we see in our daily lives. And, they are all motivated by the ideology that all things are explanable or reasoned and so, this ability to reason, is what I believe to be the greatest achievement by mankind so far.

[Amray The II]

I am not quite sure. I somewhat appreciate toilets.

[Srk]

I greatly appreciate the Internet. How else would this thread be made?

[Paku]

Greatest achievement by man was the ability to walk.
Without that we wouldn't have achieved other things.

[Magical Soul]

Sending men to the moon and other inventions though Paku has a point...

[Sasori|Eternal Sacrifice|]

Video games and cell phones, hands down.

[Amray The II]

Greatest achievement by man was the ability to walk.

Walking is more of a natural creatures instinct, similar to feeling things with our hands, breaking down food with our teeth, using our mouths to eat, and disposing of our internal wastes using our anus.

[Aizmov]

Greatest achievement by man was the ability to walk.
Without that we wouldn't have achieved other things.

Walking it overrated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

[Capernicus]

Sliced bread, duh.

[Paku]

Walking it overrated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

Moving chairs are overrated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_flying_machine

[Bulf]

I'll say the computers.

[Zenga]

Modern medicine. Otherwise, most of would not be here today.

[Eris]

The vacuum tube / transistor. It is the soul reason we have advanced farther in the last 100 years than the 2000 years preceding them.

[polaris 北極星]

I believe that the greatest achievement by mankind so far is, the ability to reason. Though, we have not achieved perfection in this ideology, it has still enabled us to evolve our way of thinking.

the ability to reason has been a part of the human psychy since the beginning, so it wouldnt be considered an achievement. its just a matter-of-fact


i think the greatest achievement by man would have to be the theory of relativity. without which we wouldnt know anything accurate about anything beyond our planet. and to think einstein figured this out in 1905. without the theory of relativity, space travel (or should i say, safe space travel) wouldnt be possible. and without space travel, we would never have had the hubble telescope, which was the cornerstone for accurate knowledge of the universe beyond our solar system. also, there would be no satellites, and u can only imagine what our world would be like without them. i could go on and on, but u get my point.

[Spiral_Warrior]

creation of guns, and nukes......................... because it makes things so easy!!!!

[Beast]

Chili dogs.

[Princely Dreaming Doll]

I think the greatest invention is written language.

[Ashminigun]

Wheels. Without it, we still moving our goods on the back of an animal/behind our backs/dragging it on uneven terrain. Also, we cannot generate electricity since turbine use the similar concept as wheels (correct me if I'm wrong).

[tsujigiri15]

I believe that the greatest achievement by mankind so far is, the ability to reason. Though, we have not achieved perfection in this ideology, it has still enabled us to evolve our way of thinking.

I dont believe 'reason' can be called a human achievement. It seems logical that as homo sapiens, as opposed to homo erectus or anyone prior to that - reason is something of a defining trait. I mean concious reason (as I imagine you do) - of the sort 'because when I drop a pebble it falls, there must be something pulling it down' rather than 'I am hungry so I should eat'. I think this means that reason and rational thought tend to be the means by which humans can achieve things, rather than an achievement in itself. I mean, consider, we must have become able to reason deductively through evolution - which we didnt have to contribute to directly. To my mind this is like saying 'the greatest achievment of a frog was it gaining lungs which could function out of water'

I think the greatest invention is written language.

Yes! I agree. Though there have been lots of good suggestions here, without writing, as humans are now, many of the subsiquent achievements/inventions - such as modern medicine, putting men on the moon etc. would have been impossible. This is simply because with the best will in the world, very few people are capable of accurately remembering/completely passing along knowledge without some sort of memory aid, as provided by written communication. I mean, maybe newton could have thought of his laws of motion, but would he then have been able to quantitativley predict planitary motion without written calculations to help?

I suppose you could use a similar argument for the taming of fire, in that without it very few human advances could have been made - we would still be much closer to apes etc. who can use tools and have a discernable social structure, wars (alas) - but nothing beyond that.

For me though, the whole 'man on the moon' thing is a truely awe inspiring feat - I mean, there are obviously others that contribute more to our lives, like the discovery of bacteria, genetics or even steam power - but for sheer scale I cant help but like it

Chili dogs.

lol - sonic the hedghog fan?

[daft]

I 2nd the guy that said toilets. I dunno about you guys, but I friggin love those things.

[tsujigiri15]

I 2nd the guy that said toilets. I dunno about you guys, but I friggin love those things.

Bleh. I dislike urinals - I mean you can generally find a bush or something when out and about, which provides a senic view, and direct contribution to the local enviroment

The man who invents a means by which the whole buisness of defication can be avoided - there's a man to congratulate

[sa5m]

Ooh, so many...
I suppose communication. Like talking. And hand movements.

[Miss Moonlight]

Hmm, I don't know if I can pick just one:

the lightbulb
computers
language
the internet
airplanes
calculators
batteries
the wheel

and pudding.

[polaris 北極星]

I dont believe 'reason' can be called a human achievement. It seems logical that as homo sapiens, as opposed to homo erectus or anyone prior to that - reason is something of a defining trait. I mean concious reason (as I imagine you do) - of the sort 'because when I drop a pebble it falls, there must be something pulling it down' rather than 'I am hungry so I should eat'. I think this means that reason and rational thought tend to be the means by which humans can achieve things, rather than an achievement in itself. I mean, consider, we must have become able to reason deductively through evolution - which we didnt have to contribute to directly. To my mind this is like saying 'the greatest achievment of a frog was it gaining lungs which could function out of water'



Yes! I agree. Though there have been lots of good suggestions here, without writing, as humans are now, many of the subsiquent achievements/inventions - such as modern medicine, putting men on the moon etc. would have been impossible. This is simply because with the best will in the world, very few people are capable of accurately remembering/completely passing along knowledge without some sort of memory aid, as provided by written communication. I mean, maybe newton could have thought of his laws of motion, but would he then have been able to quantitativley predict planitary motion without written calculations to help?

I suppose you could use a similar argument for the taming of fire, in that without it very few human advances could have been made - we would still be much closer to apes etc. who can use tools and have a discernable social structure, wars (alas) - but nothing beyond that.

For me though, the whole 'man on the moon' thing is a truely awe inspiring feat - I mean, there are obviously others that contribute more to our lives, like the discovery of bacteria, genetics or even steam power - but for sheer scale I cant help but like it

good answer

[daft]

Bleh. I dislike urinals - I mean you can generally find a bush or something when out and about, which provides a senic view, and direct contribution to the local enviroment

One time a cop caught me contributing... he got mad at me. >.>'