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Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison
Tree131 writes "The New York Times is reporting that sound recordings pre-dating Edison's made by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and tinkerer, were discovered by American audio historians at the French Academy of Sciences in Paris. The archives are on paper and were meant for recording but not playback. Researchers used a high quality scan of the recording and an electronic needle to play back the sounds recorded 150 years ago. 'For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words "Mary had a little lamb" on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison's invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades.'"
People born before us were not nearly as stupid and primitive as we are led to believe they were,
Well first of all... who is "we"? How are we led to believe that people born before us were stupid and primitive? I don't think that's ever been true... ever; and I've never believed that myself. For just one of many, many examples: Aristotle. Who hasn't heard of him or who doesn't know his profession? Your statement is just unfounded, as far as I can see; but if you have something to back it up I'd really like to check it out.
and we are not as brilliant and sophisticated as we think we are.
Again, please clarify - who is "we"? I would again claim the contrary. I think people born today absolutely are as brilliant and sophisticated as I think they are. Stephen Hawking? Richard Feynman? (two examples that I personally highly respect) - We're living in an age of exponentially increasing sophistication and efficiency of technology; but I don't think many people forget that the people who came before us are the ones that got us to where we are today - for the same reason most people know that if they went back to a time before this technology existed, they wouldn't have too much to offer our ancestors (compared to where we sit today). Our knowledge is built upon the knowledge and discoveries of others.
We think these clever people are scarce rarities because we have been brainwashed to think they are. In reality, the accumulated knowledge we think is so precious is actually rather obvious, and has been lost and re-discovered again and again and again.
How have "we" been brainwashed? How is the accumulated knowledge that we have today even remotely "rather obvious"? Please explain, and don't forget that you used the word "accumulated" - so you can't start with something as basic as the shape of the earth (which has, in fact, been discovered, lost, and rediscovered a number of times in history).
No, the accumulation of knowledge we have today goes exceedingly beyond the level of knowledge people had a few hundred years ago; and the same was true a couple hundred years ago as compared to hundreds of years before that.