""But would the question "when did you decide to be a non-smoker?" be a very effective way of challenging the idea that smoking is a choice?""

Yes it would, because everybody can remember the first time that they had the opportunity to smoke, and the choice they made at that time to say yes or no.

The same is not true of either heterosexuals or homosexuals when asked to recall exactly when they had the choice, and what they decided.

I always fancied girls, and never gave boys a second thought except as rivals, but I never made a conscious, reasoned, decision to be straight. I JUST AM!

Don T