That essay is amazing, but I think it only covers part of the spectrum.
Knowing who your parents are is less important today than a couple hundred years ago. It doesn't cripple you socially as it once did. Knowing what material your water pipes are made of has become much more important, now that we're aware of the crippling effects of lead. The present world is greatly influenced by the manipulation of amounts of mass and energy too small to see. We've come to accept this situation without surprise, and we tend to think about emergent information content and not mechanics or chemistry.
To a typical Victorian all of that wouldn't be heresy so much as fantastic nonsense.
Knowing who your parents are is less important today than a couple hundred years ago. It doesn't cripple you socially as it once did. Knowing what material your water pipes are made of has become much more important, now that we're aware of the crippling effects of lead. The present world is greatly influenced by the manipulation of amounts of mass and energy too small to see. We've come to accept this situation without surprise, and we tend to think about emergent information content and not mechanics or chemistry.
To a typical Victorian all of that wouldn't be heresy so much as fantastic nonsense.