This is also one of my favourite quotes:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke

Today we take for granted lots of things - electric stove, cars, smartphones etc.

If a person from the previous century is dropped in our current society, he will gape in awe of what we have and think everything is magic - mobile phones? Rockets?

If you take a cavemen and put him in 18th century, he will think the people there are also gods - can produce fire, have wagons, have guns etc.

Heck even now we still marvel at the recent advances of drones, more life-life androids and robotic movements. We also just landed a craft on a comet!
Next century this will all be obsolete and commonplace stuff that no one will even bat an eye.

Another example is also in medical field: Back in those days people autistic children are possessed etc. Look this up in myths in Wikipedia: Changeling.
"It is typically described as being the offspring of a fairy, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child."

But these days we know better:
"The reality behind many changeling legends was often the birth of deformed or developmentally disabled children. Among the diseases with symptoms that match the description of changelings in various legends are spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, PKU, progeria, Down syndrome, homocystinuria, Williams syndrome, Hurler syndrome, Hunter syndrome, regressive autism, Prader-Willi Syndrome, and cerebral palsy. The greater proneness of boys with birth defect correlates to the belief that male infants were more likely to be taken."

This post has been edited by jonoave: May 4 2015, 06:07 AM