I believe that <i>very</i> recent human evolution is favoring the abandonment of critical thinking.  As N generation increases, Wisdom of the crowd decreases.  There is also evidence that &quot;&quot;educated&quot;&quot; people have been outbred by &quot;&quot;uneducated&quot;&quot; people in the western world recently [0][1]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edge.org&#x2F;response-detail&#x2F;23788" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edge.org&#x2F;response-detail&#x2F;23788</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fertility_and_intelligence" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fertility_and_intelligence</a><p>Education, and IQ aside, which I find both rather primitive measures (one is credentialist and the other is biased) - there is a Cost-Benefit analysis involved in the decision to have children, that many are not participating in to begin with.   I find the above two links incorrect in that _education_ or _IQ_in_general_ can be true measures of &quot;real&quot; intelligence.  however, their argument still stands.<p>The point I&#x27;m getting at is Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N &gt; Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N+1, during and after the modern age.<p>NB: these are just <i>my</i> beliefs.   I also find that IQ is not the most reliable measure for intelligence, given Flynn effects, given the biased nature in testing itself, and given more recent cognitive psychologies understanding of differing &quot;realms&quot; of intelligence.