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From: gallagher@husc4.UUCP
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,talk.origins,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Nonagression in James P. Hogan's Giants trilogy
Message-ID: <1329@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Mar-87 13:59:31 EST
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Posted: Mon Mar  2 13:59:31 1987
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Reply-To: gallagher@husc4.UUCP (paul gallagher)
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 26
Keywords: predation (absence of), aggression (selection for)
Xref: utgpu rec.arts.sf-lovers:1621 talk.origins:372 sci.bio:133

>> >>>	In the Giants trilogy, James P. Hogan postulates (among other things)
>> >>>a world where predators do not exist (except in the deep ocean). I'll skip
>> >>>his theory of how evolution could work out to forbid predation

I haven't read the Giants trilogy, but one point which I think is relevant
to your discussion is the high correlation between certain biological
characteristics and the predatory lifestyle (in arthropods, cephalopods,
and vertebrates).
In particular, some biologists propose as an adaptive scenario for the
origin of the Vertebrates the shift to active predation:
"The earliest structures considered to be vertebrate probably developed
during the time of the shift from filter-feeding to more active predation.
This mode of life permitted and demanded greater metabolic expenditures at
the cellular level, as well as a shift to improved gas exchange and 
distribution.  Predation also provided the selection pressure for the
development of major sense organs." (Northcutt, R.G. and C. Gans, The
Genesis of the Neural Crest and Epidermal Placodes: A Reinterpretation
of Vertebrate Origins, The Quarterly Review of Biology (1983) 58:1-28.

Of course, scavengers and herbivores evolved secondarily.
Northcutt and Gans may be wrong, but if they are right, it seems that
fast-moving organisms with complex and efficient circulatory, digestive,
and nervous systems and special sense organs would not evolve among
organsims where predation on other animals is impossible.

Paul Gallagher