> Up until 1940 or so, "educated" meant "through the 8th grade." Meanwhile the argument from authority fallacy, which is misunderstood by most of the Internet, goes back to at least the romans: "I am an excellent general, therefore I shall be an excellent emperor." In terms of formal education, sure, they stopped at eighth grade. On the other hand, they were absolutely reading books, newspapers, magazines, and so on. We have more schooling, but very few people still bother with long form articles, books, magazines, or even long form podcasts with subject experts before making a decision on an issue. My grandfather didn’t have much formal education, but he read a lot of books on history and as such knew a lot about history. That generation also tended to get their news from newspapers not gossip.