Scott Alexander critiques a paper claiming superior Victorian health, finding issues with its key arguments while agreeing on some points about diet-linked disease increases. Longer summary

Scott Alexander critiques a paper claiming mid-Victorian Britain had superior health and longevity compared to today. He fact-checks key claims, finding issues with the paper's arguments about height decreases and life expectancy. While agreeing that Victorians likely had less cancer and heart disease, Scott disagrees with attributing this solely to nutrition, suggesting modern diets may have too much of harmful foods rather than lacking nutrients. He's skeptical of the authors' promotion of supplements, noting lack of evidence for their efficacy. Scott does praise the paper for highlighting the need to better understand why whole foods are beneficial. Overall, he finds the paper's main claims unsupported but agrees there has been a gradual rise in some diseases linked to modern diets. Shorter summary

Scott responds to authors of a Victorian intelligence paper, remaining skeptical of their findings and addressing critiques of his original post on IQ change speeds. Longer summary

Scott Alexander responds to the authors of a paper on Victorian intelligence who replied to his earlier critique. He remains skeptical of their findings, arguing that the Victorian sample was still more elite than modern comparisons, even when broken down by occupation. Scott also addresses a point from his original critique about the speed of IQ changes, acknowledging some validity to commenters' objections but explaining his reasoning. He concludes by suggesting that concerns about dysgenic effects on IQ may be overblown given the likely timeframe for genetic engineering or transfer to nonbiological life. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander debunks a study claiming Victorians were smarter than modern people, showing it's based on flawed data comparison and ignores crucial factors like selection bias and demographics. Longer summary

Scott Alexander critiques a study claiming Victorians were more intelligent than modern people based on reaction time measurements. He argues the study's conclusion is flawed due to significant selection bias in the Victorian data, which primarily came from wealthy, educated individuals. The modern data, in contrast, was more representative of the general population. Scott points out that the difference in reaction times can be explained by sampling from the top 20% of Victorian society versus a broader modern sample. He also highlights how the study ignores important factors like race and regional variations in IQ, which could further account for the observed differences. Scott concludes by urging readers not to cite this study as evidence for declining intelligence or civilization. Shorter summary