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305 Even if there were no history of conflict, contact might come as an unpleasant surprise to a civilization that had believed itself to be unique, a chosen species. Learning of another civilization could violate the integ- rity of strongly held beliefs. The Biological Argument Some see predation and fear of others as fundamental characteristics of complex animal life. “The most disquieting aspect of natural selec- tion as observed on Earth,” commented Easterbrook, “is that it chan- nels intellect to predators.” A necessary precondition for the development of a complex nervous system may be an active, mobile, predatory lifestyle. Any creature we contact, said biologist Michael Archer, will also have had to claw its way up the evolutionary ladder and will be every bit as nasty as we are—an extremely adaptable, extremely aggressive super predator. Drawing on the assumption that physical and chemical laws are valid throughout the universe, MacVey thought it reasonable to expect that biological laws will be too. In that light, aliens seem more likely to be predatory than benevolent. Predation and exploitation are not exclusively human traits, physicist George Baldwin warned; they are characteristic of all life, indelible genetic imprints which ensure that some species will survive. He pre- dicted that extraterrestrials will show innate contempt for other beings. Generations of humans were taught that our early mammalian ances- tors were small, meek, retiring creatures that survived the dinosaur age by being inconspicuous, staying out of the way of their dominating rivals. Now we know that at least some early mammals were predators that preyed on small dinosaurs. The remains of one mammal showed that it had swallowed an entire baby saurian. Mesozoic mammals may have competed with dinosaurs for food and territory. One scientist speculated that rapacious mammals may have driven dinosaurs to get larger, or to get off the ground by becoming avians.'” It may not be the meek who inherit the Earth—or any other planet. We are not the only primates to kill our own kind. Research has shown that our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, do not live in large, peaceful communities as some observers had assumed. Chimps are highly territorial and often violent; males patrol the boundaries between groups, killing rival males from neighboring territories. Their basic goal seems to be eliminating rivals rather than capturing females.’ Technologically Advanced Means Benign