The progress of life is when those with traits that will survive the current environment do survive. The others will die or reproduce at a lower rate.
One trait is our ability to think, to the extent that it has survived. We can observe threats and consciously avoid the destructive and pursue the constructive. We can employ people who have studied potential threats in their specialty, such as drugs, foods, transportation, the biology of reproduction, and the representation of facts. Then we can choose to apply rules from their discoveries to improve the survival rate of our community. One choice is to accept or not to accept our need for our specialists like our FDA; our licensing of teachers, cars, and guns; our police to enforce the rules; our elected leaders to work for the benefit of the community; and so forth.
It may reduce survival chances for the community if it is obligated to supply support for those individuals who choose to not follow the warnings and rules. “Let them smoke tobacco and let them die,” comes with a cost to the rest of the community. Prohibiting smoking will have an effect on the next thousand years.
You make a point about thinking. I worry that many people have decided not to think and to not reason. It is easier to just believe anything that is told to you. With the interference that is taking place with teachers, this is going to become more of the standard since teachers are not being allowed to teach. Instead of using reason, people are now starting to go by how they feel. My first wife had a saying which was, “Don’t confuse me with facts when my mind is already made up.”. This is becoming the prevalent way of deciding things.