"But they're not alien enough!" Topic

Who is this guy and how scientific are his methods, really?

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So, Star Trek called it right? ET's just got a rubber forehead-thingy, and maybe a few spots?

And here I thought they were just unimaginative and cheap.

Amazingly scientific..

He was one of the young turks in evolutionary biology..

I will try and read this.. but he is saying.. an alien that can get to the earth is likely to be "similar" to us..

But he is not saying aliens will be humans..

The theory of convergence has been around for a bit. Still, until we encounter ET in the flesh every thing is speculation, if at least educated speculation. Personally I feel it is a bit arrogant of us to assume bi-pedal, with two limbs with some kind of "hand" two eyes, etc., is the norm for the dominant species of X Earth-like planet. However our human form is a good design at least when compared to the other life forms we share the planet with. Although I think the dolphins have the better idea.

Regardless, humanoid aliens is the trope we are used to and the reason we see so many human like alien designs, even in our miniature figures.

If we just go with our limited spectrum of possible creatures on earth that could have beat us to the top, all have the general configuration to be bi-pedal with the exception of cetaceans (dolphins and whales) and the octopuses and squids. Birds, bi-pedal, chimps and apes, yep they can do the walking thing, cats, dogs, reptiles, all have the capacity to go on two legs briefly. Oh what about bears and a number of other mammals. Insects might be a departure but the whole exoskeleton thing is a problem when you start to size up.

And how many could have gone to the limits of space..?

And how many could have gone to the limits of space..?

Four. But don't ask how I know this.

From a biology perspective, we are quite ill suited for space travel, but think how much more challenging it would be for a fish, or bird, or for some form of insect like being.. (with all the limitations that their body design forces upon them)

It is not quite a quote from a book I cannot find in my library at the moment.. but a paraphrase .. but I still think our first contact with evidence of a sapient from extra terrestrial origin will be with their machines.

I think a broadly symmetrical form will be likely, but it could be radially symmetrical, or indeed a body plan that never got past the earliest stages.. (our alien planets mass extinctions.. might have left an intelligent form of an animal that never made it here on earth (as in one that originally holds one niche but was able to exploit others…)

I will paraphrase a quote from Carl Sagan in that when we do encounter another space faring species one of us will be far more technologically advanced than the other. There will not be a Star Wars as one will simply out master the other. That is a sobering thought. In the meantime I will continue to enjoy the aliens are close enough that we can at least compete scenarios. After all it be us who end up being the more advanced.

This only makes sense if you believe that convergence is indeed a rigid set of rules that all life follows. I think most evolutionary biologists would say that's .

And this also dismisses the apes or angels problem, or the implications of the possible technological singularity.

-Will

Dr. Conway Morris has been forwarding this premise for quite a while. He's indeed of the "rubber forehead" school and for one shows that it can be argued for scientifically. Insofar as you can build scientific hypothesis by extrapolating from a single data point. Which I don't think personally is that strong a base to build on.

There is an opposite school of thought ("exotics school") as well and IMCO it's equally scientific.

The fact remains that we as scifi consumers have been weaned on rubber forehead aliens because of the limitations of what could be accomplished on TV and silver screens. In literary science fiction, nonhumanoids are much more common.

However our human form is a good design at least when compared to the other life forms we share the planet with. Although I think the dolphins have the better idea.

Dolphins are not/cannot be tool users, not to mention that they cannot use fire.

Show me a dolphin with hands and fingers and now we're talking about a superior bioform.

I'm amused and amazed.. I want alien aliens.. And in the way of I know it's alien enough.. when I see it..

But yes, a fish with fingers using fire to combust to make a space journey is a challenge.. but an amphibian of a certain size … with either brain capacity or social group brain.. might have the capacity..

We might as well be an exception and intelligent life has on average more limbs than us with at least one pair available for tool use.

Convergent evolution usually deals with what I'd call self-evident designs. There are only so many ways you can streamline an aquatic predator and many will end up looking like a variation of a shark/mosasaur/orca etc.

Much of evolution is dictated by the basic designs that form the basis of life on any given planet. A big portion of land-based forms on our planet are vertebrate tetrapods, but we have very little certainty this is the case on other planets, imagine a planet where some of the weirder Cambrian critters with multiple symmetries survived and our own ancestors died out.

I prefer my aliens to be as weird as possible, if that spaceship lands on the White House lawn and a little grey guy walks out, I'll be asking my money back !!!

At the original question of how scientific his hypothesis is one could playfully stick the numbers for his hypothesis into a Bayesian equation against the Null hypothesis, but given one data point the numbers one would end up choosing would be fairly arbitrary. However one could then define a boundary condition.

True science is based in skepticism, therefore one should always try and prove the null hypothesis i.e the opposite to that which one wants, and if you fail then you have a tentative grounds from which to advance your theory, which means until facts prove otherwise.

"Dolphins are not/cannot be tool users, not to mention that they cannot use fire"

Actually dolphins do use tools and have been observed to work in highly sophisticated teams in order to catch fish. Dolphins have a long mouth which is in itself an opposable appendage. Dolphins have used their mouths to pick up objects to do such things a adorn themselves with seaweed and to use rocks to smash open clams. One dolphin will swim in a fast circle to stir up silt in shallow areas to cause millet to jump clear of the muddy cloud and into the waiting mouths of other dolphins outside the circle of stirred up sediment. Again we have only our one point of reference, i.e., us and again, it is arrogant of us to assume our human design is the superior basis, although it is a good design. So in the case of dolphins or other type of aquatic dwelling life form perhaps they could develop an advanced society although one that would be truly alien to our own. It just might take them longer sans hands of some type or perhaps we should not rule out the possibility of telekinetic development. After all dolphins have a brain larger than a humans. They just have not figured out that levitation bit yet.

In terms of Earth biology, the only really good physical templates we've seen are the mammals and the octopi. The mammals (specifically the primates) are more sociable, so produced us; while the octopi are cranky territorial types, so haven't really advanced.

And, honestly, discussion of dolphins ignores that they're built on basically the same template as a human is — if they decided to crawl out of the water so they could use fire, then they'd end up looking a lot like us. Not exactly the same, of course, but they've already got the bipedal structure. They'd need to turn their vestigial hind limbs back into useful ones, but they're there.