For all our technological advances, why do we still have problems?

Question

For all our technological advances, why do we still have problems figuring what our ancestors intended purpose was for ancient artifacts?

2,100-Year-Old Gadget Tracked Olympics

ATHENS, Greece - An astronomical calculator, considered a technological marvel of antiquity, was also used to track dates of the ancient Olympic games, researchers have found.

Experts from Britain, Greece and the United States said they have detected the word "Olympia" on a bronze dial, as well as the names of other games in ancient Greece on the device known as the Antikythera Mechanism.

Their findings will be reported Thursday in the British science journal Nature.

The 2,100-year-old Antikythera Mechanism was recovered from an ancient shipwreck in 1901 near Antikythera, a small island off Greece's south coast.

Answer 1

In extending to such realms, science has transcended the dictum that knowledge is merely for the sake of control over nature; for, especially as regards our current knowledge of the larger universe, there is little promise of that knowledge conferring any control over that part of nature. But even with the recognition of all the ways in which modern science is removed from the primitive mentality, both science and technology are but descendants of our ancestral attempt to gain understanding and control of our environment, even while altering the nature of those aims and transcending them in profound ways. In this portrayal of knowledge as an evolving body, growing in its grasp of details and in the connections it provides between different areas of inquiry and activity, both science and technology have a place as part of the career of humanity. Indeed, like knowledge in general, and despite lingering differences, science and its relevant technology have grown closer in their mutual influence.

Answer 2

Antikythera was a marvel of it's day.  And, there is evidence that more than one was built.

But 2000 years isn't much time to build up a good technology base.  We're really just starting to get a handle on medical problems, for example.  Things that were called 'medicine' just 50 years ago would mostly be called base poisons today.  And in 50 years, much of our pharmacology will be considered primitive, and inhumane.  For example, chemotherapy.  The details of the workings of animals is very complicated.

Most 'solutions' are partial solutions at best.  In the early 1900's, the horse droppings - pollution, the called it - was reaching absurd proportions in New York City.  The automobile was heralded as "pollution free".  But, as you may know, we had smog for some time.  Better solutions were needed.  And now we're there again on a global scale.

You may think that the "men in white lab coats" are really smart and will be able to fix it up.  But they're not much different than you are.  What problems have you solved?