hobie, suppose for a moment that a modern nuclear engineer was suddenly transported to the 5th century CE, with all of his science, technological, and engineering skills intact. The chances of his being able to build a fission reactor are non-existent. Why? Because technology is a slow, cumulative process. Discoveries are made and built upon by successive generations of discoverers. This is why canoes are built before battleships and why splinting broken legs comes before artificial limbs.
If you'd like to think of it in more immediate terms, consider a single human being. A newborn has essentially the same parts and potential as a Grandmaster, but very few one-year olds can play a decent game of chess.
Furthermore, I strongly suspect that knowledge proceeds by geometric progression - the more we learn, the more we CAN learn. I don't see any reason to drag aliens into the picture, and even less reason to suspect that Divine beings helped us along (if they had, we might very well have had fission reactors in the 5th century).
Boru
If you'd like to think of it in more immediate terms, consider a single human being. A newborn has essentially the same parts and potential as a Grandmaster, but very few one-year olds can play a decent game of chess.
Furthermore, I strongly suspect that knowledge proceeds by geometric progression - the more we learn, the more we CAN learn. I don't see any reason to drag aliens into the picture, and even less reason to suspect that Divine beings helped us along (if they had, we might very well have had fission reactors in the 5th century).
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
