THE TIMES: Class of 2017 dumber than Victorians

Neil Pendleton, professor of medical gerontology at the University of Manchester, who has previously worked on the genetics of human intelligence but was not involved in this study, said that the findings were an “interesting observation”.

“The methods are acceptable and the proposal has some evidence: that if the same common genetic variance we can detect for modern humans had the same effect in early figures, then it would seem there is an enrichment for these in the historical period transition,” he said.