> Even the average person today would have been considered a genius compared to someone born in 1919
> Ulric Neisser estimated that using the IQ values of 1997, the average IQ of the United States in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80. Neisser states that "Hardly any of them would have scored 'very superior', but nearly one-quarter would have appeared to be 'deficient.'" He also wrote that "Test scores are certainly going up all over the world, but whether intelligence itself has risen remains controversial."
Is it really that hard to imagine modern nutrition, abundance and education has produced smarter people compared to a group that ate bread and dripping for dinner and left school at 14 and had an education even more focused on rote memorization?