To many "smart" people have stood up and taken the credit for hundreds of others and generations of work.

We have been sold and buy the idea that there a supermen out there that are beyond clever and capable when they are just the result of their environment and resources from others. And now history is looked at through that lenses looking for singulars where there is plural.

Same with evolution. "The eyeball is too complex to evolve as a whole unit!" Well, that's absolutely correct. First, start with a patch of light sensitive cells, iterate.

all of the building blocks were created over a long time, and suddenly, their invention or discovery becomes inevitable.

The first season of Connections did an exceptional job of illustrating that idea. Highly recommended!

Even all those different little inventions had plenty of steps along the way, and almost all of them were viable during its time.

The greatest strength humanity has had to create ingenious machines wasn't intelligence.

It was time and manpower.

No you’re wrong the eyeball is so complicated the only explanation is a divine being created us!!!

(Im being very sarcastic)

Hamburgers

Make a self propelled machine and a machine that cuts grass and smoosh them together.

We did two things first:

First we made a (simple) machine that cuts wheat stalks at ground level (scythe).

Second we made a (complex) machine that is self-propelling.

The first version is just a machine that mimics the human motion of doing that task. Its a mechanical reaper that is pulled by a horse:

https://okfronline.com/2024/02/inventions-of-agriculture-the-reaper/

Then someone figures out how to make a self contained engine and it becomes self propelled.

This is a process that occurred over centuries.

Well first there's the cutting technology. Scything is ancient. Industrial production of push mowers using cylinder blades were developed in the 1800s and the more modern gas powered rotary cutters came along in the 19th century with many other self-propelled and automated mechanisms. This started with coal and wood fired agricultural equipment used for processing, like threshing and winnowing. As internal combustion engines (gas powered) developed in the 20th century more equipment and processes could be incorporated on-site and in-field.

How does one even start to make a self-propelling machine that cuts wheat stalks at ground level?

You look at a horse-drawn mowing machine like this and start thinking about how you could do something similar without the horse.

Stationary processing of grain. Then stationary automated processing of grain. Then add a cutting machine (from harvesting hay) and self-propelling and you've got your combine harvester.

The loading thing? A extruder on a swivel, old tech.