From: jc@sppip7.lkg.dec.com (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa
Subject: Re: TIME TRAVEL
Date: 6 Apr 92 20:02:03 GMT
Reply-To: jc@sppip7.lkg.dec.com (John Chambers)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

In article <1992Apr1.072715.16778@genie.slhs.udel.edu>, nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
> 
> Oh, Lord, more  of  that  habitual  self-hatred  that  this  culture
> encourages in intellectuals!
>
> They might want to contact us because we're the first other sentient
> race they've run into, and they're curious.   Or  maybe  they're  so
> sociable  that  they're  interested in all the sentient species that
> cross their path. Maybe they're interested in trading objects and/or
> information.  Of course, maybe we _are_ so yucky that they'd contact
> us so they can feel superior.  :) (Maybe not, though--for all you or
> I know, we might be one of the NICER species in the neighborhood.)

There's an interesting comment on this subject in E.O.Wilson's  famous
"Sociobiology" text. In the last chapter, where he finally gets around
to the rather touchy subject of human behavior, he observes  that  the
ethologists  doing  field  work  on  a  wide  variety  of animals have
generally seen many cases  of  inter-species  agression  resulting  in
injury  or  death  within  the first 2000 hours or so of observations.
Further study has generally verified that this isn't an anomaly;  each
species studied has such interactions at such a rate that it is highly
probably that you will observe injuries or deaths within such a  short
observation time. 

The one major exception is humans. In the first 2000 hours, a Man From
Mars  watching  us  would  probably observe at most a few instances of
verbal agression, and perhaps  some  non-injurious  physical  contact.
Even  when  all  our  wars  are taken into account, the probability of
observing inter-specific agression resulting in injuries is much lower
in  humans than in any other species that's been studied in depth.  To
gather data on the frequency  of  injurious  human  interactions,  you
would  have  to  run  your  observations  for  millions  of hours, not
just thousands.

As humans, we have an essentially unique bit of freedom:  We can  walk
about  freely almost anywhere on the planet, and not worry about being
attacked by any of the strangers we see.  In most other species,  even
the mildest herbivores, there are territorial rules, and a stranger is
very likely to be attacked and driven out  or  killed.   With  humans,
attacks  are  much more likely at home.  If we are a stranger, we will
generally be treated as a tourist,  and  thus  a  possible  source  of
income; we won't be attacked.

To biologists, this poses  an  interesting  question.   They  are,  of
course,  generally  working  from  the assumption that behavior is Yet
Another Adaptation, and are studying it as such. Why is it that humans
are   so   non-agressive  towards  strangers  of  their  own  species?
Presumably there's an adaptive reason for it,  considering  that  such
behavior is so rare in other species.

It's also interesting that our self image is so much the  opposite  of
this.   One  of  the  things that we "know" is that humans (especially
Caucasian humans ;-) are agressive, dangerous beasties that have taken
over  the  planet  by  sheer  firepower.  But the biologists doing the
comparison studies have concluded just the opposite.  Not only are  we
less  agressive  than  other species (by several orders of magnitude),
but we aren't even especially agressive hunters.  All the myths to the
contrary,  most  other predators kill "for fun" (and leave the prey to
rot) at a much higher rate than humans do.  When we kill for food,  of
course, we are by far the most dangerous beast on the planet. But even
there, we have a history of domesticating our prey animals and  giving
them  protection  against  other preditors, with the result that their
numbers are greater than they would be without  us.   Even  with  wild
prey,  there  are  many similar examples.  Thus it is estimated by the
wildlife folks that the Canada Goose population of  North  America  is
greater  now  than  it has ever been in the past.  Humans are probably
more dangerous to non-prey species than to those that we like to eat.

If it's true that There Are Aliens Among Us,  there's  a  good  chance
that  they're also curious as to how we could have become the dominant
species while  being  so  incredibly  non-agressive.   They  might  be
contemplating  taking  over  the  planet,  and  worrying  whether this
apparently mild-mannered species will end up conquering them  instead.
There are plenty of such examples in human records of our own history.