Morphic Fields

I think it's the same thing that accounts for rats who become obese
having obese descendants.
Changes that occur at a genetic level as a result of interaction with the environment
are passed on.
I think it's called "epigenes" but I don't remember for sure.

This sounds a bit like the Hundredth Monkey phenomena from 30 years ago.

Or, if the researchers didn't bleach the maze enough, the rats followed the path of the familiar family smell to "solve" the maze.

Or, breeding two rats with excellent maze-solving skills selects for baby rats with fantastic maze-solving skills.

Older rhymes that have lasted generations do so because they are well-written. The Cat in the Hat was an instant best-seller back when it was published, and counter to what was implied in the article, was easy to memorize. Folks deride it as doggerel, but most Suessian parodies cannot duplicate the charm.

I could only wish I could speak all of the languages of my ancestors in this neat way!

I'd like to see the details of the maze experiments.

My own guess is that learning the maze activates epigenes
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genes/mice.html
which are passed on, enabling subsequent generations to learn faster.

I wonder if this explains the rise in general stupidity abounding in the world these days.

People have been so busy running after 'beauty' and 'monetary success' that other social traits like 'caring' and 'common sense' are being lost.

Stupidity hasn't increased, it's just getting more attention as the world becomes more connected.

I've been under the impression that this little corner of space had a finite amount of intelligence for the human life form and since the population is growing the amount doled out to each life form keeps being cut.

You may actually be on to something.