Mary Fisher wrote:

Can you navigate back to your house if let loose hundreds of miles away
with no previous experience?

Of course I *can*. North is easily found and folowed by a number of
methods.


You're using previous experience as well as artificial aids. A pigeon
doesn't even need a stick.

Which accurately encapsulates my point. You are clearly confusing
instinctive abilities with intellect, learning ability and resourcefulness.

Since the Renaissance?

Absolutely. In the Dark Ages, virtually all technical knowledge went
down the drain. The Mayan, Inca and Egyptian civilizations all lost the
vast majority, if not all, of their knowledge base. While the Romans
introduced many innovations to Europe, it took a remarkably short time
for all of that to collapse. The Renaissance vas a very accurate term
for the period. Technology was back to square one. Various inventions
were catalytic to a positive feedback loop of invention and learning.

I think your history of humankind is as weak as your natural history.

While the majority of mt interest is the 20c, of which I have an entire
8' bookcase of books, lovingly compiled over more than 20 years, some
very, very rare, I also dabble further back than that.



John Schmitt