But it seems like if you're making the argument that science is getting harder, then raw numbers should matter more than percentages. From the article: "I’m c

But it seems like if you're making the argument that science is getting harder, then raw numbers should matter more than percentages. From the article: "I’m claiming that science is getting harder, in the sense that it is increasingly challenging to make discoveries that have comparable impact to the ones in the past". So, unless you're arguing that there aren't an equivalent 20 people alive today as prestigious as the 20 people that went to the 1911 Solvay conference. Then the fact that there are greater percentage of less talented people now, shouldn't make it harder for the greater number of talented people to make "discoveries <of> comparable impact". (With some caveats of course.)