I think the author of the article overemphasizes the role of predation in actually changing us.
Certainly it was one of the pressures mitigating against our survival, but competition for resources would have had a more selective function.
Migration, climactic change, and the need to find alternate forms of nourishment would have had a more direct effect in selecting for intelligence.
Predation was a major driving factor in the evolution of such divers creatures as the sauropods and the armadillo. I'm not certain why it wouldn't be a major fact in human evolution, too.