Human genome at ten: Life is complicated (H/T Dr. Daniel MacArthur). This is one reason that economists are in more demand than historians in public life. Economics is reducible in a way that history is usually not, or at least historians tend not to be interested in doing. Also, the average economist is much smarter than the average historian, so they’re quicker on their feet with dense brevity (though subject matter does matter, the average physicist is much smarter than the average biologist, but physics is too abstruse and without the prominence of nuclear weapons/energy of less importance to the public).
Note: Before people yell at me about generalizations about intelligence, if you read this blog you do know that I really like history and biology. Just google GRE scores.
