Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!hou5f!orion!houca!hogpc!hogpd!avi From: avi@hogpd.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Smoking is not "evolution in action"!!! Message-ID: <78@hogpd.UUCP> Date: Thu, 23-Jun-83 08:51:06 EDT Article-I.D.: hogpd.78 Posted: Thu Jun 23 08:51:06 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jun-83 14:22:44 EDT References: cbscd5.220 Lines: 26 !sh I am afraid that most smokers start smoking too late for evolution to take a signifificant toll. They usually have enough children before they die, so that evolution is not getting a chance to "weed" out their contribution to the genetic pool. Many of the effects of smoking are only felt 20 to 30 years after you start. The only way I - as a devout non-smoker - can help to minimize the spread of genes that predispose one to crave nicotine and tar is to refuse to help in the creation a child whose mother is a smoker. (I probably would not want to live with her, anyway.) On a more serious level, I remember reading some studies of the effects on children whose mothers smoked (?heavily?) during their pregnancy. I think these kids were smaller than average. Does anyone remember any more specific statistics? Are these kids at higher risk than the rest of us? (Well, actually, my mom did smoke! Maybe that explains why I was born a month prematurely.) The placenta allows many obnoxious chemicals to filter through into the fetal blood- stream. If smoking has a measurable negative effect on the probability that these kids will not have the 2.3 (or whatever) additional children that they would usually have, then maybe evolution is in action!!!!! Is it discrimination to require that (pregnant) women should not smoke -- while allowing the "father" to continue? Similar remarks apply to alcohol. Avi Gross hogpd!avi 9-576-3063