Breaking the Genetic Code was really the big "leap"; we still don't know what many genes do exactly and how they tie into things. As for chemical processes we're getting there, but to my knowledge we've only established a few things such as side-effects and whatnot; it's more of an expounding rather than any real watershed discoveries. Genetically speaking we can do things we did some time ago in a much more effecient manner, but chemically speaking we're still struggling to find newer medicines to take care of old problems.
Simple, the "Communication" Boom; with FTP over HTTP being invented ( known to you as the Internet ) ideas have gone flying everywhere and it's easier to access information allowing for great minds to come together with a few clicks in some program, but at the same time what we think, the general public that is, is revolutionary is hardly as such. Dual core computers are nothing new, as a matter of fact theoretically you could have a computer with infinite cores, and multi-CPU computers are also not new; many medical advances have been in testing for years, and when it came about that they were successful they were released rather rapidly at one time creating an illusionary "boom", and of course the social revolution that began with technology being "The Gateway" and the end of the age where people did loads of manual labor added to the illusion.
To be honest, when really taken into account, our computer memory systems are only 10% greater than they were 50 years ago, and because many things look super-new ( even though they are based off of old constructs and designs ) and advertisement for new things is everywhere people are generally tricked into believing we've come light-years ahead.
Even with topics like these, sexuality for instance, most people don't know this was thought of almost 200 years prior to now, and even moreso don't know that their infamous APA system was come up with long ago by a lawyer who was just making things up. That's right, "Attraction > Action" was made up by a legal man, not a doctor with a Ph. D. in anything, and worse yet it was used as an underhanded tactic to defend people in court. So much for that, the "coming a long way"; since the fifties our educational system has actually dropped and while colleges are pumping out plenty of graduates most aren't getting jobs in their own fields, or worse are getting poor jobs in their fields because they either suffer from overcrowding or the person is not capable, though qualified, to do the work.
I'd love to see a day, at least in America as it stands, where the education level stops "dropping" and we can really say "We're moving ahead."
My personal computer, based off of very basic logic systems, existed over fifty years ago. The smaller eletronic computer was built in the 80's by multiple people actually, and while it exploded and people attribute the beginning to Bill Gates computers almost twenty times as powerful ( and as large ) were running easily twenty years earlier.
It's kind of like cell phones in Japan and other crap; it's not actually "new" or "inventive" or even "groundbreaking", it's just smaller, easier to handle, and has more crap. It's what they use to impress the public; all sparkle and no substance.
