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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> You guys seem to be on the extreme end of the spectrum and not allow 
> anything for genetics.

If I did not allow anything for genetics why would I do exercises to 
avoid my father's fate?

It occurs to me that we are being simplistic. We are assuming that 
each of us has a similar definition of genetics. Consider what 
genetics is, where it comes from, how it acts. Not Mendelian 
genetics, which btw were with plants, but commonsense knowledge about 
how people live and how their children tend to be subject to the same 
environmental conditions and the same nutrition and exercise habits. 
What we call genetics may well be related in cause and effect to what 
we call instinct. When a pattern is repeated for generations it has 
reason to be replicated again. The simplest example I can think of is 
diet. Who among us has not been influenced by how our parents 
supplied family diet? And where did they get their ideas on the 
subject? How far back might go the habit of eating a particular diet 
or preparation style? But yesterday's diet fed active people. Today?

In all ways we are the product of all that has been before. Today we 
have different environmental, dietary, transportation conditions than 
did our ancestors. Today we have vast information, we have 
substantial free will, we have choice. We make decisions daily and we 
live or die with the results.

My effort here has been to offer what I have found so far that works 
for me so I think it has value. I'm glad to have riled a few people 
up. Thinking is good. Apathy is deadly.