Expert Says Aliens Will Look Like Humans

[WaltC]

Lol... "Experts" on alien life...Hah-ha...! That's like being a expert on the number of Angels that will fit on the head of pin...! What utter nonsense...some people really will believe almost anything today, won't they? Remarkable & very funny...

 

[flegg]

The leg part is irrelevant. The astonishing similarity between vertebrate eyes and octopus eyes is much more compelling. Still, we evolved from the same genetic code and overall biochemistry. I would imagine that a life-form that evolves from a completely different biochem would only loosely resemble humans given the same environmental conditions.

 

[Xrave]

The article is a bit of a stretch.

You could probably make the assumption if you are specifically referring to a carbon based lifeform with DNA/RNA structure evolving in a water-based environment.

However you could get something totally different if you look at a silicon based lifeform, or other different environments.

 

[Catalan]

I doubt the professor meant that aliens will look like dudes with forehead appliances straight out of Star Trek. The idea of a "humanoid" form is broader than that. The notion of convergent evolution is sound enough that I would expect a fairly limited range of body plans among potentially space-faring beings with the intelligence, physical dexterity, and environmental conditions required to build machines.

 

[Ducman69]

I doubt the professor meant that aliens will look like dudes with forehead appliances straight out of Star Trek. The idea of a "humanoid" form is broader than that. The notion of convergent evolution is sound enough that I would expect a fairly limited range of body plans among potentially space-faring beings with the intelligence, physical dexterity, and environmental conditions required to build machines.

Convergent evolution only happens when the environments are the same though, that was the point. For example, if the gravity were lower and the atmosphere super oxygenated, its fare more likely we'd have an exoskeleton rather than an exoskeleton. And needing less lungs, less heart, less structure, and so forth in the lighter gravity, flying may be the far more logical means of locomotion, and perhaps four slender limbs on an undercarriage to manipulate objects while hovering. Or if gravity were doubled, then walking upright on two legs would be pretty crappy, so you'd more likely have low to the ground four or six limbed creatures with mandibles to object manipulation. And why can't an advanced species live in a waterbased environment like most life on Earth has?

And why couldn't they operate using a hive mind instead of having a cooperative group of individuals, where each individual is rather dumb and tiny, but they act like neurons in the brain where the larger the population that communicate say with some sort of radio waves the larger the brain becomes. If that were the case, then perhaps you'd have billions of tiny insect like creatures or even nanobot size that work together into one superorganism to create giant space ships and the like with a single consciousness.

Seems like a ton of possibilities, so I'm not buying it.

 

[Ducman69]

*dammit* rather than an endoskeleton is what I meant.

 

[Catalan]

Convergent evolution only happens when the environments are the same though, that was the point. For example, if the gravity were lower and the atmosphere super oxygenated, its fare more likely we'd have an exoskeleton rather than an exoskeleton.

Right, which is going to have consequences in terms of metallurgy and chemistry, which in turn affect everything from swords, to rockets, to computers.

And needing less lungs, less heart, less structure, and so forth in the lighter gravity, flying may be the far more logical means of locomotion, and perhaps four slender limbs on an undercarriage to manipulate objects while hovering.

Which impacts their odds of bothering to develop flying machines and their physical ability to manipulate their environment to reach the point of building rockets...

Or if gravity were doubled...

Which impacts their ability to get crap into orbit...

And why can't an advanced species live in a waterbased environment like most life on Earth has?

Hey, I wouldn't be shocked if cetaceans qualified for what we call "personhood", or if they'd consider us just barely capable of their superior "cetaceanhood". Fact is, however, that they are not building a technological civilization any time soon, so the point is moot. We will not be meeting their equals traveling amongst the stars unless they were aided by a species much closer to us than them.

And why couldn't they operate using a hive mind instead of having a cooperative group of individuals, where each individual is rather dumb and tiny, but they act like neurons in the brain where the larger the population that communicate say with some sort of radio waves the larger the brain becomes. If that were the case, then perhaps you'd have billions of tiny insect like creatures or even nanobot size that work together into one superorganism to create giant space ships and the like with a single consciousness.

Or they could just teleport here with magic.

 

[nightfly]

We forget. By simple odds, some aliens will be humanoid, and some won't. What is obvious is that any we might meet in the near future will be far more technologically advanced, and civilized, than we are. Which is why there's no advantage to them to contact us at all. In general, we're greedy, selfish, xenophobic, violent, and our leaders, the most visible examples of our species, are the most dishonest, deceptive that anyone could imagine. Who would want anything to do with us? Sure, we may continue to develop as a species, but our history of self destruction is way too obvious an example of why no one would want to get involved with us.