What Happened?

We were discussing the relative mental capabilities of recent presidents, and noted the apparent trend in decreasing cognitive abilities when comparing grandson with father and then back to grandfather. As this short biography shows, there was once a brightly shining mind in this family.

In some sense he is considered to be the creator of the modern concept of the hyperlink as illustrated in the latter part of of the referenced page. Of course, his comment describing “a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility” more or less matches modern computer systems, including the web.

Switched at birth?