> They also illustrate the evolution of this One of my pet-peeves: Certain science fiction writers (often amateur) posit that humans will greatly impress alien

> They also illustrate the evolution of this One of my pet-peeves: Certain science fiction writers (often amateur) posit that humans will greatly impress aliens with our willingness--no, zeal--to consume capsaicin, a terrible death substance all sentient races flee from etc. This is nonsense since it's basically an narrowly targeted false-alarm trick between relatively closely related creatures. It's not acidic, caustic, corrosive, etc. > this protein Just to head off the ambiguous phrasing here: Capsaicin itself is not a protein, but a much simpler kind of chemical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylpropanoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylpropanoid