Researchers suggest Victorian-era people more intelligent than modern-day counterparts

PhyOrg ^ | 17 May 2013 | Bob Yirka

[kabumpo]

And I’ll bet they knew that the plural of dog is not dog’s, unlike so many on FR.

[a fool in paradise]

Weren’t Democrats last week saying that conservatives want to turn the clock back to the 1800s???

[BobL]

So was Napoleon gay? He certainly looks it there. No wonder Russia made quick work of him.

[This I Wonder32460]

Possibly the biggest dumbing-down across the population as a whole has been the dumbing-down of moral standards and with that everything else is following suit. I fear some day in the future when the power goes out no one will be able to hand write any ideas or messages they need in print because they all learned to text or keyboard, an activity formerly known as typing. Then again there may be few who could read handwriting at that point in time.

[yarddog]

My Grandfather was born in 1865. He died in 1957. He lived in a time of incredible technological advance. When he was a young man he probably hunted with a muzzle loader or at least used black powder.

No one had much of an idea of aircraft other than balloons.

He got to see jet fighters break the sound barrier, the start of space exploration, television, and so many things. He saw two World Wars.

Medicine went from Dr.s who attended medical school in the early 1800s to wonder drugs.

[Farmer Dean]

There weren’t a lot of drugs to abuse back then,unlike today.

[greene66]

I have a number of old magazines from the turn-of-the-century. Just typical stuff, from “Ladies Home Journal” down to old-time dime novels. If these were a reflection of the culture, it sure shows a much more impressive and more intelligent society than what we have now.

Similarly, listen to some 1940s radio quiz shows, and watch some old kinescopes of early-1950s game shows, in which people were plucked from the audience and asked questions (geography, history, etc.) for prizes. Usually average-joes, like carpenters or salesmen or housewives, from all across America, who were in New York for a vacation, and went to see a live quiz show. It’s amazing how knowledgeable and how well-read they tend to be, compared to what is found today. The juxtaposition is downright jarring.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Birth of ‘Progressivism’.

[eartrumpet]

I read the book about either the Jolly Rogers or Black Sheep squadron in WWII. Can’t remember which book, I read both. Anyway, they were on an island in the South Pacific and needed a squadron name and symbol. Blackburn or Boyington (whichever book it was in) said a few of their guys knew about heraldry and drew up a shield and crest, then someone suggested making the bar on the shield slant the other direction to indicated a bastard crest. Now remember, this was a bunch of guys in their early 20s who had completed a minimum 2 years college, with no internet access and no library to refer to.

My 1908 vintage grandpa left school in the 8th grade and did very well for himself. I never noticed him lacking in any field of knowledge that he needed.

[RHS Jr]

Did you mean “Waddling” around today?

[DownInFlames]

People had to read. Writing and math were all w pen and pencil.

[Daffynition]

I don't think it is easy to compare Victorian Europe [this article] with Victorian America [my family history].

Here in the US my experience had inventors, builders of factories, large and small, a railroad, producing crops of significant size, boat building. Why goodness, in the basement in the farm next door to us, Eli Whitney was building models of his cotton gin. During this time, people were unfettered by government and regulations. They just did stuff.

Yet they were some 25,000 orphans on the streets of NYC.

We were annexing Texas, killing Sioux at Wounded Knee, building the Suez Canal. All feats great and not so great. FWIW, here is no one truth about the past. There was gold fever here, Brits suffered a disaster in Afghanistan. We can only learn from the past or not.

[rfp1234]

By the time present-day academics are done rewriting history, every world leader including Napoleon, Bismarck, and Queen Victoria, will have been determined to be ‘gay’.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

He is like the Mona Lisa of men...Just what has he got in that jacket? A knife? What was with Mona Lisas smile? Actually there is a good explanation for Mona Lisa...When they did paintings back then, almost all the time the portraits would show no emotion. They would look like mannequins, stone faced. But when da Vinci showed a smile (which he did a few times before Lisa) people thought the painting was alive because they weren’t used to it. And that started the whole mystique. The painting itself isn’t anything special, it is too dark and not one of da Vincis best, but he had the audacity to show emotion and that made all he difference in the world.

[BobL]

“By the time present-day academics are done rewriting history, every world leader including Napoleon, Bismarck, and Queen Victoria, will have been determined to be ‘gay’”

Well it certainly doesn’t help much if they pose like that...and then let the painting get released to the public, and not even execute the painter.

[BobL]

Now this is the RIGHT WAY to have a portrait done. No hint of mint here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lucas_Cranach_d._%C3%84._063.jpg

[dr_lew]

I read years ago that the ancient Athenians must have been extremely intelligent.

Yah. 2100 years ago! Well, if you read what they wrote then, I mean. It's astounding.

[CatherineofAragon]

LOL, yes...thanks for the correction.

[dr_lew]

Yah. 2100 years ago!

Oops. Let's say 2400 years ago.

[dr_lew]

If you were to be transported back to that time and place, and interact on a daily basis with these people, I don’t think you would be thinking how smart they are. You would be like, “Lemme outta here!”