Free The Avram Davidson Treasury by Avram Davidson Page B

Territories, to Dr. Morris Goldpepper, wherever you may be: DO NOT DESPAIR! We are intent upon your rescue! We will bend every effort to this end! We shall fight the good fight!
    “Have courage, Dr. Morris Goldpepper! You shall return!”
     
Now Let Us Sleep
    I NTRODUCTION BY G REGORY B ENFORD
    When “Now Let Us Sleep” first appeared it excited a fine reaction. The dark issues it confronts lie deep within us. Since its publication, we have learned much about our origins, our connections to the other primates, and implications for our own lot in the universe.
    Consider the chimpanzees. We separated from them genetically about six million years ago and differ by less than two percent in our DNA. We’ve patched together, from field observation and evolutionary logic, a picture of how they—and we—evolved our social behaviors.
    The issues of this story arise from a conflict between Avram’s clear, liberal sympathies and the nagging knowledge that maybe our core natures conflict. This is dismaying news indeed.
    Let me sketch some of the perspectives from a scientific view, to outline the problems.
    Chimpanzees move in small groups, disliking outsiders, breeding mostly within their modest circle of a few dozen. This meant that any genetic trait that emerged could pass swiftly into all the members, through inbreeding. If it helped the band survive, the rough rub of chance would select for that band’s survival.
    But the trait had to be undiluted. A troop of especially good rock throwers would get swallowed up if they joined a company of several hundred, their genetic heritage watered down.
    What to do? Striking a balance between the accidents of genetics in small groups, and the stability of large groups—that was the trick, we believe.
    Some lucky troop might have genetic traits that fit the next challenge handed out by the ever-altering world. They did well. With some out-breeding, that trait got spread into other bands. Down through the strainer of time, others picked up the trait. It spread.
    So small bands held fast to their eccentric traits, and some prospered. Evolutionary jumps happened faster in small, semi-isolated bands which out-bred slightly. They kept their genetic assets in one small basket, the troop. The price was steep: a strong preference for their own tiny lot.
    This would lead to a species that hated crowds, strangers, general alienness. Nature, then, did not produce a natural liberal.
    Bands of less than ten were too vulnerable to disease or predators; a few losses and the group failed. Too many, and they lost the concentration of close breeding. They were intensely loyal to their group, identifying each other in the dark by smell.
    Because they had many common genes, altruistic actions were common. This meant even heroism—for even if the hero died, his shared genes were passed on through his relatives.
    So it was actually helpful to develop smoldering animosity to outsiders, an immediate sense of their wrongness.
    Even if strangers could pass the tests of difference in appearances, manner, smell, grooming—even then, culture could amplify the effects. Newcomers with different language or dress, or habits and posture, would seem repulsive. Anything that served to distinguish a band would keep hatreds high.
    Each small genetic ensemble would then be driven by natural selection to stress the noninherited differences—even arbitrary ones, dimly connected to survival fitness—and so they evolved culture. Diversity in their tribal intricacies avoided genetic watering down. They heeded the ancient call of aloof, wary tribalism.
    Does this chimp scenario fit us? Some resemblances are striking.
    After all, we still resemble the common chimps and pygmy chimps. We’re just bigger and with less hair, walking upright. The visible differences between us and chimps were far less than, say, between Great Danes and Chihuahuas. Yet dogs interbreed. We and chimps do not.
    In nature, genocide occurs in wolves and