It is intriguing how discussions about falling standards arise. . .Reading or watching the news reveals that our doctors are unscrupulous figures who regularly cock up your care and molest your daughters; teachers are ignoramuses presiding over a 3rd world exam system within which exams are supposedly no match for the A levels of old; accountants will move to the Bahamas on your retirement money. . .Are skills like those of a flying instructor or doctor or cabinetmaker really deterioraating? Why is it we all come to feel this way? Surely objective evidence shows that our abilities to ameliorate the effects of disease or transport ourselves safely by air are in fact improving?