Are we getting stupider?

There are two ways, as everyone knows, of running an authoritative study comparing apples, say, and oranges. One is to survey a large number of apples and oranges and run a chi-squared test and get a p value and do a bunch of other things I knew how to do in college but have since forgotten. The other is to find the Platonic ideal of an orange and the Platonic ideal of an apple and compare them. This latter method is quicker.

On pp. 104–5 of Impossible Histories, I mention, in passing, that over ...