For anyone curious the idea that we make slow, discrete progress and that the idea that a few brilliant souls are responsible for most of the advances in human hostory is a bunch of hogwash, Matt Ridley has written an excellent book on the subject, The Evolution Of Everything (amazon.com&#x2F;Evolution-Everything-How-Ideas-Emerge&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0062296000).  Coincidentally he&#x27;s also written a fabulous book on the human genome, either way it&#x27;s great stuff  and absolutely critical to understanding how to we can (as a species) progress most effectively.