An interesting, thought-provoking post. Again. Thanks.

I do believe nature has a way of levelling the field. A few hundred years ago world trade became a reality. Goods manufactured anywhere could find their way to anywhere else. Illness and ideas could travel, religions collided and between the Plague and Crusades both the manpower and other resources which could have supported a nascent intellectual growth spurt slowed it down.

We are now entering another era, as you so deftly pointed out. And there are forces conspiring against the expansion of the growth we've seen. We are entering a period of religious warfare. Illnesses are able to modify themselves and travel extremely rapidly. Add population expansion and throw in climate warming with the economic and social disruptions that will create.

The world, in my opinion will soon enter a rather convulsive period and there will not be the resources for scientific expansion we have always anticipated. The curve will not accellerate, but will flatten out and dive for a while.

At least until a vastly reduced population with religions which practice tolerance has adapted to a vastly different climate. Those folks will have an interesting time.

A while back there was the Utopian idea that computers would make everyone's job easier, we'd all work 20 hours a week and be able to afford long vacations while living in large houses and driving big cars. I believe that is a similar thought to the expansion of knowledge and expertise. That Utopia also ran afoul of reality. Human nature and Mother Nature conspired against it.

Humility is not Man's strong suit. And yet there are forces larger than Man around. I suspect they will assert themselves. Again.

Arf