Progress is a lake, not a line
When people describe progress, they often describe it in terms of a linear progression taking us from primitive to advanced — an idea or invention occurs as a singular event, and somewhere further down the line of time a new idea or invention completely replaces it, relegating the old to the annals of history. This viewpoint is exemplified by traditional worldviews that organize all beings according to a chain of evolution, sometimes called the “great chain of being” (or scala naturae). The chain of being links God, angels, humans, animals, plants, and minerals in a hierarchy. All beings on earth, animate and inanimate, could be organized according to an increasing scale of perfection, from mushrooms and rocks at the bottom up through lobsters and rabbits, all the way to human beings and God at the top. ...