[dctoedt]

In computer terms: the CPU(s) and RAM of humans -- the wetware, if you will -- are presumably much the same, on average, as they were 100 years ago.

But it seems indisputable that we know how to deal effectively with more of life's threats and opportunities than we did back then.

(Again in computer terms, our libraries of event-detection and -handling routines are much more sophisticated than those of a century ago.)

As a simple example, just think of how much more more the average person knows about, say, healthy eating and the downside of smoking -- this isn't to say, of course, that there isn't still a lot of work to do in disseminating that knowledge.

So yeah, there seems little question that we are indeed 'smarter' (in the sense used above) than we were 100 years ago.