...my suggestion is that truth-seeking (science etc) has increased in usefulness over time, whereas charisma is probably roughly the same as it has been for a long time.

Yes, and I think it's a good suggestion. I think I can phrase my real objection better now.

My objection is that I don't think this article gives any evidence for that suggestion. The historical storytelling is a nice illustration, but I don't think it's evidence.

I don't think it's evidence because I don't expect evolutionary reasoning at this shallow a depth to produce reliable results. Historical storytelling can justify all sorts of things, and if it justifies your suggestion, that doesn't really mean anything to me.

A link to a more detailed evolutionary argument written by someone else, or even just a link to a Wikipedia article on the general concept, would have changed this. But what's here is just evolutionary/historical storytelling like I've seen justifying all sorts of incorrect conclusions, and the only difference is that I happen to agree with the conclusion.

If you just want to illustrate something that you expect your readers to already believe, this is fine. If you want to convince anybody you'd need a different article.