[Prophet Tenebrae]

Evolution is - if anything - a process that slows as organisms become more advanced. While some bacteria can go through a dozen generations in a matter of hours we're up to... what 30ish years in the developed world for a generation? Not to speak of all the counter evolutionary stuff we do - and not killing cripples/the Welsh really irritates me for at least 7 distinct reasons.

Anyways, technological progress is somewhat inherently exponential - not things like your iPhone which are fancy but of little practical use in terms of advancing the frontiers of science - computer X means you can design computer Y which is more powerful a lot more easily, computer Y lets you make discovery Z and so on.

Of course, one might argue that with genetic engineering you can change all that and so on.

As to "no one" predicting the future... Haven't both Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke been credited with predicting it? Much like Jules Vernes predicted the submarine and so on... And if you've seen "How William Shatner changed the world", you'll see him give credit to Star Trek for leading to the production of mobile phones etc.