Convergent Evolution
You know how on Star Trek every one of the aliens is just some stupid actor with a really messed up looking face?
For example, take Worf:
Now, I’m not a fan of star trek, but this theme has bled over onto other types of science fiction. For example, Star Wars is full of aliens that look like humans but with weird facial traits, like our friend Bib Fortuna:
And, I was recently playing a game called Mass Effect that has various alien races, each with some kind of weird looking trait differences, but overall pretty much human:
I’m bringing this up because for a very long time I thought that science fiction writers and designers were either limited with their choices of make-up (i.e. Star Trek) or were just somewhat uninspired. Either that or they found it too difficult to work with something that didn’t have similar body structure to humans. I never really thought too deep into why this choice was made. But are we really expecting aliens to have similar traits to humans? I realize the idea is far fetched, but what if we did make contact with a species from another world?
Do you think they would walk upright and have two arms and two legs?
My answer? I think that the idea is at least plausible.
The reason for my thinking is due to something I read recently called Convergent Evolution. The definition (taken directly from Wikipedia):
“In evolutionary biology, convergent evolution is the process whereby organisms not closely related (not monophyletic), independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches. It is the opposite of divergent evolution, where related species evolve different traits.”
By the way, Monophyletic in that sentence means that they do not have the same ancestors.
So, take a planet similar to Earth, high in water and that has carbon-based life. Through evolution, that planet just might produce some of the same kinds of things as we have here, due to a similar environment. A perfect example of this is these two cacti:
One is an African plant, and one is an Asian plant. They are 100% completely unrelated to one another, yet evolved in almost exactly the same way. Because the only life we know about is sourced from a planet like ours, it’s absolutely conceivable that if we ever do come across an alien species that they might look like us. Or at least, they will look like something we are familiar with.
I personally can’t wait to meet aliens that look like huge platypuses.
RE: The Platypus…. What a strange animal…..Present day scientist Sir Richard Dawkins is considered by DISCOVER magazine to be ‘Evolution’s fiercest champion’. See article http://discovermagazine.com/2005/sep/darwins-rottweiler in which his book THE ANCESTOR’s TALE is reviewed. The reviewer notes that
“Dawkins begins one chapter of the book with a witty and erudite introduction to the platypus, an animal renowned for the ducklike bill grafted onto its mammalian body. “It seemed so weird when first discovered,” Dawkins writes, “that a specimen sent to a museum was thought to be a hoax: bits of mammal and bits of bird stitched together. Others have wondered whether God was having a bad day when he created the platypus. Finding some spare parts left over on the workshop floor, he decided to unite rather than waste them.”
But then Dawkins delivers the scientific punch line: a lucid explanation of the platypus’s remarkable ability, embedded in its goofy Donald Duck appendage, to detect the faintest electrical signals generated by muscular twitches of shrimp and other prey buried in the mud. Some 40,000 exquisitely fine-tuned sensors arrayed in that bill manage to electrolocate food beyond the range of sight, sound, or touch; indeed, the platypus closes its eyes, ears, and nostrils while foraging. “See no prey, hear no prey, smell no prey: yet it finds prey with great efficiency,” Dawkins wrote with appreciative relish, “catching half its own weight in a day.”
That is a fascinating example of convergent evolution. It’s amazing species thousands of miles apart can look so similar, yet other species that coexist in the same environment can be strikingly different.
And I cannot wait until we find evidence of aliens . . . I just hope it happens in our lifetime!
I’ve thought about the same thing many times. Big sci-fi fan, but I’ve also taken my share of bioanthropology classes to know that the whole bipedal “humanoid” form isn’t the only (or best) way for sentient beings to evolve. I’ve also taken some telecomm courses here at my university, one of which was taught by guy who wrote for Star Trek TNG for a couple of seasons, to know that viewers want to relate to what they see on tv. If a show tries to pass off a main character that doesn’t look one bit human then the audience will simply fail to connect with it.
Maybe this will change in the next decade or two as we start to learn more about all the exoplanets we’re finding. Maybe we’ll see Hollywood throw in more diversity in our fictional alien population when people start thinking more about how life might evolve on distant planets with triple Earth’s gravity, for example.
Do you have references for this?
It’s all good stuff, related to a project I’m doing, but sadly blogs don’t cut it in the reference field of academic essays.
Wikipedia was my source, as it is for most of the information on this page. I suggest you consult the wiki-gods for the information you seek.