It's hard for me to appreciate an argument that we were more rational during a time of religious dominance, the last 2000 or so years. We've been greatly humbl

It's hard for me to appreciate an argument that we were more rational during a time of religious dominance, the last 2000 or so years. We've been greatly humbled by being wrong over and over in recent decades. Maybe that has driven people to be less confident and stop presenting their thoughts as inevitable rational conclusions. This resonates with me. We are more able to verify our assertions, quicker, faster, more accurately and are more hesitant to make bold claims. I also think we have a bit of division of specialization going on, where the world keeps turning if everyone is competent in their specialty, allowing our personal, unprofessional, side to act more irrationally without as much consequence as in the past. Ultimately it's really hard for me to believe that as we spread education and opportunity to the 8 billion people of the world, we are somehow measurably less rational then when a large swath of our population couldn't even read or write.