what i want to know is if fire was never discovered, were would we as a race be today? would we have died out? evolved diferently, needing hair for warmth,etc., or was the discovery of fire inadvetible? on further note what are other discoveries that if not discovered would have greatly devestated our race and why? and what path would we have taken?

like industrial revolution and such?

well another example of a discovery very important to us would have been the knowledge and tools of agriculture. without that we would have remained nomads.

mostly its the simple things that we dont think about that if didnt exist would have changed our lives.

more examples:
lightbulbes, imagine still having to use candles or oillamps.
means of communication, without it we wouldnt be in touch with the world.
weapons? maybe no war?

Dude nobody discovered fire. It occurs naturally as a result of lightning.

remind me never to light the stove in your house............

maybe instead of "discover" use the word "tamed"? Someone'll still come in and talk about raging forest fires and volcanoes, but I think most might get that instead of discover.

And if we never used fire? I think it would be a most unwelcome world for us. We use fire for so many different things, not the least of which protection, security, and comfort (or enduring otherwise uninhabitable cimates). There would be no sterilization, no alloy, no bricks no pottery. No glass, no cooked meals, no fired wood, no smoke signals, no smoking... we'd not know about fire clearing, would die to fire more often. Nothing to light dark passages, nothing to keep wild animals away in the wilderness.

Would kinda suck. I think, it wouldn't take too long (if nothing else about humanity in the scenario is changed) before someone figured it out eventually.

What if the law of karma didn't exsist, or concequences to actions didn't exsist?

Think no candles or oil lamps. Remember "No Fire".

I'd say the printing press..Without the capability to mass produce books knowledge would still be a tightly controlled subsidiary of the church..We may have never left the Middle Ages behind us..

let me rephrase it so you don't come in here talking about "raging forest fires" and what not...what if man kind was never able to grasp the concept of fire as a tool? hopefully that is good enough for you...

Yes, that's a much better way to phrase it.

If we never used fire as a tool I think we would have been forced to discover electricity alot sooner. People need heat and light, so with out fire, humans would have to figure out another source of these two necessities, thus electricity would be discovered. However I think the taming of fire was inevitable.

Simple, we would probably not be here. Or, if we were, life would suck.

Most people might not have even been able to survive back then, in the cold. I never gave that much thought....... but hmmmmmm......

No fire, eh? I think that was inevitable. Taming fire is truly a better way to look at it.

As far as other "world changing discoveries", I would have to say - medicinal plants. Tallow trees, yew, roots, poppy , and a whole host of other wonderfully helpful plants. Our ancestors knew of these things long before we "re-discovered them", and relied on them heavily.

Natural magnets have to rate pretty darn high on the list of "earth shattering discoveries too." The magnetic field of the Earth, and the magnetic nature of the poles of the planet were a real boon as well.

In more modern times, sulfa drugs, and then antibiotics, photo-electrics, radioactive minerals, hydrocarbon based fuels and lubricants.

I could go on.... and on.... But I digress.

Ah you're good at digressing merl,
welcome to the forum,
watch out for this fella guys he's a damned reprobate,
just like me

in my opinion of we never "tamed" fire we would have evolved differently, needing fur to keep warm,etc...

It's certainly questionable whether our Eurasian ancestors would have survived the ice age....... Though without fire I suppose their African and Austronesian cousins would have survived okay.

But without fire there would have been, for example, no pottery.

And no beer

no beer!? how could mankind exist without?

easily,
theres always vodka

ah but beer is mans nectar

ya we would have ended up evolvin to gain fur but fire would have happened if anyone liked it or not, just needed adry season and a lightning storm and bada bing bada boom

wait 15 years and tell me that

to make electricity, we burn coal to heat up water to produce steam to turn a turbine...so it too involves fire, at least more than 50% of the time. There is wind, solar, water, and nuclear power, but discovering nuclear power before wielding fire???sounds unlikely.

we be still living in caves!

fire has always been...there is no way we could NOT discover it.maybe a better question would be where mankind would be if we left the fire alone, and not used it to help shape the progress of mankind

lol
thats gonna be the same answer though isn't it ??

If we didn't we would have thick fur and be less inteelegent like sasquatch or yeti

without fire?? maybe we would all be vampires.......

Taming fire???? I guess that's possible. After all, there is such a thing as wildfire.

No fire? Smokey the Bear would be out of a job

Without fire, humanity would probably not exist. Our ancestors, Homo Erectus, tamed it, and generally required it to survive. If they died out, we would never have evolved.

That said, assuming that, since homo sapiens appeared in Africa, they somehow managed to evolve in spite of the lack of fire (since it is possible to survive without it, at least in the climate of Africa), almost all of our technology disappears with the loss of fire. Without fire, you can not smelt most metal tools (although you could still hammer copper and meteoric iron into weapons), or survive anywhere with a winter.

Not necessarily. Remember, our ancestors (and other groups) used animal skins to keep warm. Now we wouldn't have LIGHT, but then our day would just end when the sun went down. (think Amish) The Industrial Revolution might not have happened, because many of those machines needed fire in order to run. (hence the coal mining era, hence all the abandoned mining towns in PA) Also, electricity (as someone mentioned) was discovered through lightning, which is.....FIRE!



So yes, humanity really WOULD be screwed without fire.

with out fire we would eat raw meat, Therefore we would be different our whole make up would have to change for this one little fact.

if we didn't know how to use fire as a tool it would mean that we would be very fury and we might not have become very intelligent. Using things from our environment as a tool or for our own benefit is part of humanities 'intelligence'.