18th century:
“If I have seen far, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” Sir Isaac Newton
21st century:
“You have to be very careful in your choice of giant because you may be facing the wrong way.” Wallace Thornhill
As has been oft noted, the assumption of all people throughout history is that they are smarter and more sophisticated than the generations that went before.
It is, of course, not true; we live in a backward age. In the early part of the 20th century, many sciences departed from rational enquiry and fell into the dogma attendant to government funded and controlled education. They have remained in that dismal state ever since.
These areas include Cosmology, Medicine, Money and Economics, and Anthropology; to name just a few.
Meanwhile, in what remains of the free market, areas largely free of government funding, advances continued unchecked. This has brought us to the unenviable situation where erroneous sciences have access to, and funding for, highly sophisticated technologies.
It is a combination fraught with danger.