is progress good for us?

Just as I was leaving for work this morning an interesting moment launched itself down the radio waves into my kitchen.

We heard that the early humans used to potter about in their small groups hunting passing game; gathering a handful of berries here, digging a tasty carrot-ancestor there. And apart from having a lifespan of some 20+ years were by and large pretty healthy.

Then they discovered Farming. And proper villages grew up where the villagers spent all their time tilling and sowing and eating completely the wrong sort of food (sliced white and all that). And when one chap got a germ, he passed it on to all the others.

And really it's been pretty much downhill ever since.

So much for the man with the beagle then (wasn't that Captain Archer?), getting it all A over T. He should have been pronouncing on the survival of the UNfittest.