Researchers suggest Victorian-era people more intelligent than modern-day counterparts

In short: duh.

The metric used was a test of reaction time to visual stimuli. From 1884 to 2004, the reaction time for men rose from 183 milliseconds to 253 milliseconds; for women, 188 milliseconds to 261 milliseconds.

To me this would seem to be a pretty fast change via evolution, but then, the Victorian era was more or less the beginning of the era of both modern medicine and the nanny state. Both of those will lead to the dumbing down of mankind by the simple expedient of protecting people from their own stupidity. I shudder to imagine what the future holds when the effects of Internet addiction and the like are added in.