Check out this article from Cracked:5 Unexpected Downsides to High Intelligence. Guess what number one on the list is? I know that it's Cracked, and not the New England Journal of Medicine, but they back up their statements. To stay on focus, speaking as a smoker (one or two cigarettes a day/ a pack lasts me about 2 weeks), I think the new rule is fucked up, but they are within their rights. That doesn't mean I have to like it though.
Precisely what irks me. You made a quantitative statement (non-smokers are brighter than smokers) based on zero empirical evidence. I started smoking at 15, after my best friend was raped and my boyfriend told me having one of his cigarettes would help ease the stress. I, too, have quit several times in the past 8 years for months or years at a time, only to come back to it when shit gets tough. I've made several other questionable decisions regarding my health and wellbeing over the years; a thread was even dedicated to one of those forays. In spite of this, you will be hard pressed to find anyone who considers me to be stupid or weak. Many board members can likely say the same for themselves or smokers they know. I'm glad your daughter understands at a young age what the risks are of certain behaviors, and I hope that when she's out with her friends at a party and you're not around to disapprove, she doesn't pick up the habit. Perhaps you should continue setting what appears to be a good example for your children by not throwing around baseless "facts" and getting butthurt when others point out your mistakes. Oh. Focus: Private company = pick and choose hires all they want. That's their business, and if cutting costs were my primary concern, I'd likely do something similar.
His claims aren't entirely baseless, empirically speaking. Smoking tends to be negatively correlated with socioeconomic status and education, but apparently the correlation exists even after correcting for those factors. Like many empirical correlations however, this sort of thing doesn't work particularly well at the individual level. Einstein, Churchhill, so on and so forth. As far as I know, Dan Quayle does not smoke. I don't actually have any problem with his claim itself (and I say that as someone who has smoked). I just think it's odd to treat smoking as so vehemently different from every other self-destructive habit that we engage in.
If zzr had cited studies, the post may have been easier to swallow. But when asked for evidence to back up his statements, he even admitted that his post was based on observation, not statistics, as if we all walk around with our IQ scores tattooed to our foreheads. Furthermore, the validity of IQ scores as a measure of intelligence has been challenged repeatedly over the last several years: here, here, and here. No argument for socioeconomic status, though.
A paragraph from that article: This does not mean what the researchers wanted it to mean. And if "while intelligent tests are administered" means anything more than "during the actual testing itself and not a second longer," then the whole damn thing is suspect to me.
This seems to me a fairly straightforward argument. Smoking is a stupid thing to do, and as the wise man once said...
Obviously, stupid here as a deliberate transgression of something valued. But who's doing the valuing?
Considering we all got here through a mutual interest in Tucker Max I'm not sure if this is a joke or a statement.
I can't find the study at the moment, but there's a research paper that gets dragged out in support of legalizing weed and MDMA fairly regularly that shows the likelihood of death from use of substances corrected for average usage and average means of consumption (IE they rate tobacco based on the sales of cigarettes vs chew and average mortality rates for cigarettes vs chew. They go from caffeine to to ketamine to weed to trips, shrooms, MDMA, etc. Up to cocaine and heroin, with a brief divergence into Russian roulette for comparison. The top 5 on their list, in order were Alcohol, Coke, Heroin, Tobacco and Russian Roulette - with a note that in their findings there was no significant difference between the top 3. After rounding the numbers off - Alcohol users have about a 1 in 50 chance of their cause of death ending up as Alcohol. Cocaine users about a one in 15. Heroin, Tobacco and Russian Roulette all have about a 1 in 6 chance of being the cause of your death if you're an average participant. The timeline between first participation and death obviously varies. I have no idea about the reality of drug use, or nicotine use as correlated against intelligence. I know that while I was personally smoking meth and cones of weed laced with ketamine and speed, and going to parties on ecstasy, acid and Viagra, I never wanted to start smoking - because that shit will kill you and is too fucking hard to quit. But i've also spent most of my life wondering if I'm actually smart, retarded, or just spending a lot of time in the company of fucking morons.
Well if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck... It's probably a coked up deviant using home appliances for sexual gratification. I think I might have missed something there, I blame it on my Superbowl hangover.
I just don't see why its ok for a company to ban people from employment for doing something that is totally legal. I hate to use the far right's gay marriage argument, but it is a slippery slope. If they can pull this, whats to stop them from barring employment for people who eat fast food? Then eventually, its anyone who eats meat. Then only vegans can be hired. I understand the health risks that go with smoking, and the benefit cost increase that goes hand. The fact of the matter is that the US government considers tobacco legal and an employer is (going on a stretch here) making up their own laws. Making your workplace tobacco free is fine, as well as denying employees the ability to use tobacco while they're on the clock. But what happens outside of that zone is the employees choice so long as it does not effect work productivity.
Couple things... First of all, the correlation they found was a less than 10 point spread in IQ, which may be a nice scientific study and an interesting data point, but does not hold much significance when judging something as broad and complex as performance at work - or even any kind of real broader intelligence, since IQ tests are pretty limited in scope. Second of all, it certainly isn't a better indicator of likelihood for good job performance than a basic interview. And lastly, as you said, it's a lousy individual indicator and a terrible brush to paint everyone with.
You should hate to use that argument; it's specious, illogical, and distracting from the issue at hand. Baylor Health isn't trying to bar employment for people who eat meat or fast food or animal products. Those are invented hypothetical scenarios that appeal not to evidence nor to any reasonable progression from reality but instead to the knee-jerk reaction of "OMG how horrible would THAT be???!" The same problem applies when people say gay marriage is going to lead to people marrying multiple dogs. Nobody wants to marry multiple dogs; dudes want to marry other dudes. Stick to the question at hand; stick to the cigarettes. (Side note: how would we even test for any of that shit? Security cameras in every McDonald's? Stool samples? That's one way to create jobs. "Shit-Testers Needed at Baylor Health.") For further slippery slope reading check out this 100-page tome by UCLA Law professor Eugene Volokh: <a class="postlink" href="http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/slippery.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/slippery.htm</a> As far as I see it, Baylor Health is perfectly within its rights to refuse employment to nicotine users. All potential employees have the opportunity to quit smoking or the opportunity to work elsewhere. And since current employees aren't affected by the policy, it won't put anyone out of work who wasn't there to begin with. Why they want to do this I couldn't tell you, but they're certainly within their rights, both legally and ethically, to do so. Spoiler Didn't want to waste time and go for the obvious with the last three presidents.
Bolded for emphasis. The question ISN'T cigarettes. The question is nicotine consumption, regardless of method. While nicotine itself can cause health problems (decreased respiratory and pulmonary fitness, much like being a complete lardass), I'm not aware of any research definitively indicating that nicotine alone causes cancer. As for those that can simply choose to quit, nicotine is one of the most addictive chemicals known, comparable to cocaine or heroin. The withdrawal that results from cold turkey quitting is godawful, which is why people use nicotine patches, gum, or e-cigarettes. Under Baylor's new regulations, these people wouldn't have the option of using any physical quitting aids because nicotine would remain present in their system. Sidenote - the question about getting buckwild with no-hire rules and gay marriage just might be valid in this case, since Baylor is a super Christian university nestled in the same town as David Koresh's last stand.
Russian spin the bottle is even better. Everyone sits in a circle, one person pulls the grenade and spins it, and in less than seven minutes you'll all be in heaven.