[helicalmix]

Have you considered that it's possible that both you and Scott are particular good at reasoning, and it's everyone else that is much worse at this stuff?

You're pointing out a bunch of errors, but it's not clear to me that they're schoolboy errors (i.e. errors a schoolboy wouldn't have made). I would also venture to guess that the average educated person would make much more egregious mistakes.

[pdonis]

> it's not clear to me that they're schoolboy errors (i.e. errors a schoolboy wouldn't have made)

If this is the case, IMO it's more a reflection of the awfulness of the schooling in our time than anything else. No schoolboy in the US of a century ago would have made such egregious historical errors, because they would have been taught some actual history instead of what students in the US today get taught.

[helicalmix]

My tongue in cheek response is that you are correct, because a century ago, WWII didn't happen yet.

Can you provably demonstrate that education quality was better a century ago? I'm not outright trying to refute you, so much as I have a belief that people tend to overstate the "good old days", so I usually prefer more concrete data points.