Smoking puzzle

TheMadFool May 10, 2018 at 10:27 3275 views 8 comments

Humans smoke. I mean tobacco in the form of cigarettes which require us to inhale smoke. When we smoke for the first time some but not all reflexively cough. The smoke irritates the air passages. But after sometime we get used to it and the cough reflex is suppressed.

From the animals I've only seen chimps and heard of gorillas smoking. They're primates, our close cousins.

No other animal can ever pick up the smoking habit. At least that's what I think? In fact I've seen dogs cough and sneeze when someone's smoking.

Why is it so? Why is it that only primates can pick up the smoking habit?

Does the opposable thumb come with an ability to inhale smoke?

Comments (8)

Cavacava May 10, 2018 at 10:33 #177193 0 likes

Reply to TheMadFool

https://youtu.be/nh6k9NL-82s

Hanover May 10, 2018 at 10:35 #177195 0 likes

Quoting TheMadFool

Why is it so? Why is it that only primates can pick up the smoking habit?

Does the opposable thumb come with an ability to inhale smoke?

Maybe do an experiment where you put on oven mitts and see if you can make a cigarette, light it, and smoke it and do it all while using a dog's equivalence of your brain.

Wayfarer May 10, 2018 at 10:36 #177196 0 likes

If there is a potential bad habit somewhere in the universe, something will evolve to indulge in it. It’s one of the lesser-known consequences of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

Hanover May 10, 2018 at 10:37 #177197 0 likes

An epidemic: User image

ArguingWAristotleTiff May 10, 2018 at 11:52 #177207 0 likes

@TheMadFool
Your observation is something I would have noticed if I was paying attention to the smoking aspect but I haven't as I love watching animals and their habits. I used to joke that my horse Dasher, if he was a human, would have been a chain smoker.

Why? Horses have habits that can become a bit obsessive much like chain smokers but instead of lighting up, Dasher would grip the galvanized steel paddock rails in between his teeth and would drag his teeth back and forth on the rail, all day long. We call it "cribbing" but Dasher? I think he would have been just as happy with smoke, after smoke, after smoke. :up:

Occasionally he would kick back a beer with us but that tidbit is for another day. :cool:

Ciceronianus May 10, 2018 at 18:17 #177254 0 likes

So, had Plato known of tobacco, he would have defined man as "a featherless biped capable of smoking." In which case Diogenes would have appeared brandishing a plucked chicken fresh from a fire declaiming "Behold Plato's man!"

SherlockH May 26, 2018 at 02:33 #182317 0 likes

Reply to TheMadFool Opposable thumbs

Monitor May 26, 2018 at 06:15 #182334 0 likes

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Dasher would grip the galvanized steel paddock rails in between his teeth and would drag his teeth back and forth on the rail, all day long. We call it "cribbing" but Dasher? I think he would have been just as happy with smoke, after smoke, after smoke. :up:

So, have you decided that Dasher was content while doing this all day long?