What aspect of art/science do you think mankind has progressed the most in?

Biology

Tool-Making

Digital art in any form has opened up artistic expression in a whole new way to the masses who might not otherwise pick up a paint brush, pencil, trowel, chisel, knife, saw, acoustic musical instrument or film camera.

Chemistry.

Cosmology

We have progressed right out of producing ‘art’ at all, settling for concept and celebrity. I see this as a backward step. Communications technology has changed the world more than anything else, from the first printing press to the wonders of our dear internet.

tech !

Scientific Method.

I’m going with electronics. Once that got really going, the world changed rapidly.

Light. From fire to now self powered lighting we will never have to be afraid of the dark again.

Laziness.

Astronomy. With the use of the world’s largest telescopes atop Mauna Kea here on the Big Island of Hawaii, we have seen farther back into the origins of the universe than ever before.

@hawaii_jake I’ve heard the view up there is amazing. Does it snow up top?

@cockswain : Yes, we get snow up there. People have been known to surf in the morning and then go to the top of Mauna Kea and snowboard in the afternoon. That’s other people, not me.

I’ll second electronics. I mean, a few hundred years ago, nobody even knew what an electron was. Electronics today underlies almost all of our tech, especially computers.

The same thing was said about wagon wheels. ;-)

Medicine

Communication, as an area, in every form.

(1) the development of spoken language.
(2) the creation of the written word.
(3) the distribution of writing through the printing press.
(4) the invention of long-distance real-time communication.
(5) the invention of audio/visual recording devices to preserve and transmit information.
(6) the digitization of information allowing for retention without space-based costs, and the subsequent crowd-sourcing of the world’s problems to the world.

@iamthemob communication is fundamental, great answer, can’t top that.
Among the ‘sciences’ I’d say materials science. Understanding the properties of the stuff of which we can make things is the enabler for just about all the modern breakthroughs you can name. Steel, kevlar, fiber optics, high energy explosives (Nobel/dynamite) ComplementaryMetalOxideSemiconductors (CMOS). You name any wow machine and it’s not possible w/o modern mastery of materials.