How smart is the average person today compared to the average peasant in ancient or medieval times?

François Viète invented symbolic algebra, Fermat later linked it to geometry and made coordinate geometry, and Descartes ripped off Fermat.
And they are confusing modern algebra (groups/rings/fields) with symbolic algebra with the 20th century BS.

Hypothetically very smart, we have all the knowledge of the world at our finger tips, everyone has a somewhat basic reading comprehension and we don't even have to leave or home for that.

But we don't use it, because our vices are more interesting, like shitposting on an anonymous image board for Malaysian foot paintings

I've read somewhere that the more time you spend around your children, and the more words they are exposed to, the smarter they tend to be. Nutrition too.
I have no idea how much time a medieval peasant spent talking with their children though.

You really can't say one is smarter than the other. A medieval peasant would think you are dumb as fuck because you don't know how to thatch a roof.

You would think he's dumb because he can't read.

He never had the chance to learn how to read and you never needed to thatch a roof. Doesn't make either dumb.

is this graph i made accurate?

>>>/reddit/

no. People today are equally dumb than people yesterday, but people today think they are smart. The stupidity thinks, because it discusses hundreds of events so remote from them that it because vapid. But not discussing them brings you back to being a pleb in a small village where there is nothing to do than drinking and trying to please a few women.

>grammar
People are actually smarter today because they have compulsory education and are better fed. That being said, all the rich aristocrats that got educations and were well fed may have very likely been as smart as, or smarter than modern people.

...

Average person today:
>Taller, healthier, more intelligent and much more knowledgeable

Average person back then:
>Worse in every way except being skilled at their trade/profession (because obviously an average peasant back then knows more about farming than an average joe does today, assuming that our contemporary person isn't a farmer).

>I still think in broad strokes we're smarter.
I agree and I want to add that we're being taught very abstract ideas and concepts from childhood. We're taught to think, to solve abstract problems and memorize patterns. Training your brain like that makes you sharper, like physical training can make you stronger or more enduring.

>Clearly our abilities, attained through scholarly education, better nutrition, more varied lifestyles, and generally more developed societies prove we are more intelligent
That makes no fucking sense. Having a better lifestyle doesn't make you smarter.

malnutrition and iliteracy makes you dumber, that's proven.

fit people are usually smarter than average.

What the fuck am I looking at? Is this a graph of how many people have a given level of intelligence? If so they should all be bell curves.

Too many people conflating intelligence with education in this thread. General human intelligence hasn't changed significantly for 200k years. The average NASCAR watching shlub is no more intelligent than the average turnip farming peasant of a 1000 years ago.

Intelligence is situational for the most part and capacity for learning as said pretty much the same. Techniques and standards for educatiob change. How would great leaders, thinkers, and philosophers arise in more historical times if the bar was significantly lower?

As a relative and purely opinionated example. I see your average uni/college student and graduate still making poor personal decisions, accumulating debt (expectations and opportunity cost), having schedules with huge time constraints, and expected to have very high personal initative for expectations but not their own choices. You create a pretty good graduate but person for example might be debateable.

IQ scores have risen in the last century.

a 19 century 100 IQ points will be retarded today.

look up the flynn effect.

The flyn effect is real but average intelligence in the 19th century was not the equivalent of a retard today.

Don't you realize how nonsensical that is?

it makes sense civilization makes people smarter.
look up jews IQ rise in the last 500 years because of their jobs as bankers.

Let's ask you questions about things you literally know nothing about I'm a format you have never been exposed to and see how well you do.

you know education teaches critical thinking and logic?

at least that's what a good school is supposed to teach kids.

plus you need to understand we consume information in vast quantities compared to what an ancient person saw in his lifetime.

most people today can do basic aritmetic and read.
back then everyone was an iliterate peasant.

Define "smart"

More intelligent? Not by a discernible margin.

More educated? In the west (or everywhere honestly), yes

Modern Americans are borderline retarded compared to your average ancient or medieval European. Most young people today can't name the Vice President , know zero practical skills in case of an emergency, know nothing of religion beyond sunday school level discourse (at best) and otherwise completely conform to whatever John Oliver or Cheech and Chong tell them to think.

Compare this to the past. Has anyone actually read on how rigorous schooling was in the ancient and medieval eras? Modern people wouldn't last one day. The medieval and ancient eduction level speaks for herself as ancient and medieval literature almost always demonstrates advanced knowledge of mythology, historical events, historical figures, religious themes etc. that is mind blowing in caliber.

smrter than you faggot

The Flynn effect is generally accepted not to represent real gains in intelligence, but people becoming better at IQ tests. Reaction times correlate with IQ and were faster in the Victorian era. We really have so little evidence and analytical consistency when it comes to historical psychology, its total pseud shit.

Are you saying the average medieval European would know how to read, do basic arithmetic, and understand why the sun rises and sets every day?

> Are you saying the average medieval European would know how to read, do basic arithmetic,
The OP asked about both medieval and ancient people. Your average ancient Roman absolutely knew how to read and do basic arithmetic. Public education was available in most towns, cities and villages. Even girls received an elementary level education. Since medieval Europe maintained much of Rome's customs I wouldn't be surprised if your average medieval European knew these things as well.

>and understand why the sun rises and sets every day?

Your average modern American doesn't understand why the sun rises and sets every day, and regardless this trivial fact is a poor criteria for intelligence .

I don't imagine are that much more intelligent. I think that we've improved somewhat, undeniably. On the other hand mesoamerican cultures were still extremely intelligent, as were the Egyptians, as were the Mediterraneans and so on.
While the hyper attention to intelligence must have no doubt created and or encouraged an adapted path towards it the technology stemming from this increase in intelligence asks dramatically less from the individual.

These increases have allowed for output of similar or greater substance in the academic fields without an intellect as higher as previously needed. It's not necessarily a bad thing but it IS incorrect to pretend that progress and intelligence and inherently linked. They were related to each other, and still are. The more we learn the more we teach. The better we teach the more people learn. However there are more factors in play than intelligence.

I wouldn't think the average person today would be smarter than their Medieval European counterparts. They would be more educated, though, as average European peasants did not have the same level of education as a modern person in a developed country.