system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If modern man has been around for 50,000 years, why have we only begun to scientifically progress over the last 2000 years or so?
gpt
1. We were busy surviving. Doing real science takes a certain amount of free time, and when all of your time is taken up getting enough food, clothing, shelter, etc. then you don't have much to devote to R&D. Unless it helps you win wars, which was one of the drivers of scientific progress (and to an extent still is).  
  
2. Religion and similar philosophies explained how the universe worked already. Who needs empirical data when the shaman knows why things are the way they are and how its going to be? There was no culture of testing ideas and conclusions with experiments; if things didn't go the way the priests said it would, there was always an explanation.   
  
3. Science builds upon science. You gotta get the foundation, and get it mostly right enough. Then you refine, improve, expand. It appears that scientific progress improves on something like an exponential curve. Exponential curves start out slow when you look back from high up on the curve. To be fair, there was scientific progress long before 2000 years ago, but it was spotty and slow. For example, look at ancient Egypt. They had many examples of good-enough science (and plenty examples of non-science, too).  You have to remember, things like the wheel and agriculture are very much based on science and technology.