Re: pesticide industry vs. auto industry
Aleta B Cheal (acheal@juno.com)
Fri, 5 Jun 1998 18:34:44 -0400
Steve Groff wrote:
>
>> I won't argue that IQ is decreasing but attributing it solely to the
use of
>> pesticides is certainly a weak proposition. I'm not saying there isn't
a
>> remote possibility here, but don't you think that TV, lack of respect
for
>> teachers, and just plain down doom and gloom that some are portraying
(even
>> some sanetters) isn't having an affect on a persons desire to think
for
>> themselves and be all that they can be?
>
>Dawn Gifford wrote:
IQ is a genetic potential for intelligence and learning. It is governed
only
>by things that effect genes and PHYSICAL development, like heredity or
the
>influence of pesticides and other pollutants on fetal development.
>Exposure to lead after birth can also physically damage brain tissues
which will
>in turn affect IQ and learning.
>
>As a teacher in the inner city, pollution related problems are endemic
>among my students. 7 out of 10 of my students have asthma for example,
which
>affects their attendance and their ability to focus. Most of my students
are
>malnourished too, which definitely affects the ability to learn.
>Likewise, my kids face enormous social problems that effect their
ability to learn,
>but this is NOT the same thing as affecting IQ. If these social
problems
>were remedied, my kids would all have great potential for learning and
>succeeding, UNLESS they had been affected in utero by endocrine
disrupting
>pollutants. In a nutshell, if we lower a child's IQ before she ever gets
to school,
>it is irrelevant (to this argument) what environment she grows up in
because
>that child's potential has already been compromised.
>>
I think that Dawn gets at what I meant about pesticides affecting IQ's.
Of course there are many factors that affect success, academic and
otherwise, some physical and genetic and others environmental. But
regardless of what kind of environment in which a child is raised, every
child deserves to have the potential to do well. Not every child will
get the opportunity to be raised in a family that encourages education
and intellectual growth. How to change that fact is another arguement
entirely. But I think that every child deserves not to be impaired
before even being born by chemicals whose effects we don't fully
understand. There will always be a wide range in IQ's, depending on each
individual, and I don't at all mean to imply that having a lower IQ will
not allow a child the chance to succeed. However, if the overall IQ of
the entire country/world starts to go down, this is something that we
need to be concerned about.
Aleta Cheal
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