Up in Smoke

A new study on life expectancy has found that educated Americans are likely to live an average of seven years longer than their less bookish counterparts. Much to my surprise, this discrepancy is not accounted for by the fact that stupid people are more likely to walk in front of moving vehicles. Rather, the study found, less educated people are more likely to smoke cigarettes and hence have higher rates of emphysema and lung cancer, dragging their mean life expectancy down significantly. Walking in front a car strikes me as cheaper and likely less painful, but whatever.

Still, I imagine Darwin would be somewhat amused.