Societies Don’t Evolve, they Reflect

Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash

If you were to say to someone, "Over time, societies have evolved to function more peacefully" your audience may readily jump into a discussion about whether peace has become more prevalent. Meanwhile, both you and them would likely take for granted the premise that over time, societies evolve.

A key to learning is leveraging ones ability to use analogy in making useful associations between knowledge. However, allowing analogy to go beyond it's appropriate place - providing reference - and instead confusing it with understanding of subjects themselves leads to false knowledge. Alternatively put, comparing subject A to subject B should never be confused with demonstrating actual knowledge of either subject.

A commonly heard example of this is, "the human brain is like a computer." While one can imagine functions that share resemblance between brains and computers, the analogy is void of real knowledge. Computer engineers can understand nothing about the human brain, while neurologists can understand nothing about computers. Meanwhile, anyone who's told "the human brain is like a computer" learns nothing about brains or computers.

Tying this back, the analogy between societal change and evolution demonstrates no knowledge of either subject. Conversely, under inspection, it seems to be quite a false premise. One that confuses the…