"Babylon 5 - The Nautilus Coil - J Gregory Keyes (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Babylon 5)

originated here. This planet's truly native ecology did not include any land
animals larger than a cat." He pointed at the skeleton that appeared most
Human. "This fellow, for instance, had ancestors from Earth. Probably archaic
Humans, {/Homo erectus/}."

"Those lived -- what? A million years ago?" Garibaldi asked. "How old is
this skeleton?"

"Ten years or so. But don't mistake me -- this is {/not/} a {/Homo
erectus/}. It's something the Vorlons made from them. Something that you or I
would scarcely recognize as Human."

"It {/looks/} Human," Lyta said. "Or mostly so."

Vacit shook his head. "Human beings are weak creatures. We have no claws,
our teeth are relatively inoffensive when compared to those of, say, a tiger.
As animals go, we are not strong, or fast. Instead, we developed tools and
intelligence to help us survive. The best tool-users had the most children,
and their children were better tool users. Our brains are built around
ingenuity, curiosity, experimentation -- tool use."

"Monkey see, monkey do. Human evolution in a nutshell," Garibaldi said.
"So?"

"Here," Vacit replied, "the Vorlons were interested in none of those
qualities. These cousins of ours were bred for only one thing -- as hosts for
telepath genes." He cocked his head. "Did you know that there are {/no/}
intelligent races in which telepathy evolved naturally?"

Lyta frowned. "I thought there were a few."

"There weren't -- for good reasons. A race that develops telepathy and
telekenesis doesn't {/need/} intelligence. If you can sense any predator,
then convince the predator you aren't there, why develop weapons to protect
yourself from them? If you can sense game and call them to you, why develop
complex hunting skills? Like claws or teeth, telepathy is too much a tool for
direct-action. Once a species commits to a built-in weapon, evolution tends
to continue the process of specialization , building around the weapon. That
isn't the road to intelligence -- the road to intelligence requires a
commitment to generalization, not specialization. Human beings are the most
general animals of all, physically. We have the same four kinds of teeth our
most remote mammalian ancestors had. We have the same five-fingered paws that
we inherited from reptiles. Not claws, hooves, or flippers, but hands,
specialized in being {/unspecialized/}. We {/make/} our claws. If something
comes along we can't eat, we don't' evolve new teeth or more stomachs -- we
pound it or burn it or soak it until we can digest it."

"But telepath genes {/were/} developed," Lyta objected.

"Yes, but not by evolution. The Vorlons manipulated and bred, experimented,