[Mirioron]

>I have always been suspicious of the "only people in the last 500 years had brains" bias. I wonder if all ages have had that bias?

This is an incredibly interesting point to consider. I would like to say that yes, every age had this kind of a bias, but perhaps that's not true. Life was rather similar during the time of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Renaissance. The daily life of average people, their wealth and tools weren't that different. They certainly have much less difference then the difference between the start of the Industrial Revolution and today. Perhaps people in previous ages didn't have this kind of a bias because they didn't see such a huge change in people's lives?

One thing that we seem to be adopting as a society is the idea that we need some kind of reasonable evidence for our beliefs. Usually this means that evidence based on the science of nature prevails, but we haven't really been able to push this onto all areas of life. I certainly think that we've managed to cover more fields than in the previous ages though.