Exiobiology and Alien life:

[joigus]

19 minutes ago, beecee said:

Missed this...Nice post by the way.

Came across an interesting article.......

https://www.quantamagazine.org/arik-kershenbaum-on-why-alien-life-may-be-like-life-on-earth-20210318/

Why Extraterrestrial Life May Not Seem Entirely Alien

The zoologist Arik Kershenbaum argues that because some evolutionary challenges are truly universal, life throughout the cosmos may share certain features.

Arik Kershenbaum, a zoologist and animal communications researcher at the University of Cambridge, thinks that the evolutionary forces that shape life on Earth will produce many similar features in extraterrestrial life.

On the website for the department of zoology of the University of Cambridge, the page for Arik Kershenbaum lists his three main areas of research, one of which stands out from the others. Kershenbaum studies “Wolves & other canids,” “Dolphins & cetaceans” — and “Aliens.” Granted, science hasn’t yet found any aliens to study, but Kershenbaum says that there are certain things we can still say about them with reasonable certainty. Topping the list: They evolved.

“The bottom line — why animals do the things that they do, why they are the things that they are — is because of evolution,” said Kershenbaum, a lecturer and director of studies in the natural sciences at the university’s Girton College. He argues that evolution is a universal law of nature, like gravity — and that studies of plants and animals here can therefore tell us something useful about potential inhabitants of worlds far beyond Earth. He finds evidence for this in the process of evolutionary convergence, in which unrelated lineages of organisms evolve similar features as adaptations to similar environmental challenges. It’s an argument he presents in detail in his new book, The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens — and Ourselves, which draws on comparisons of animals’ physical adaptations as well as his own research (and that of others) into animal communications.

more at link................................

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I sort of anyway see plenty of logic in that article. Particularly if we are inferring comparable intelligent advanced life forms that may reach space-faring capabilites. I made a comment supporting that stance a while back here, somewhere. Isn't basically the human form, two arms, fingers, opposing thumb, etc necessary for constructing cities, engineering projects etc, along of course with the necessary intelligence? 

Thanks. This kind of thinking resonates with what I think myself; that there probably aren't very many ways for life to emerge. It's not just about "oh, I can change this atom for another chemically similar one that plays the same role," etc. It's also about the abundances of those elements in galaxies. One is compelled to think that whatever happened during the Hadean Eon that jump-started abiogenesis, rates of molecular collisions must have played an important role.

But it's so hard to be sure about any of these things.

[beecee]

28 minutes ago, joigus said:

But it's so hard to be sure about any of these things.

We can be sure of that!! 😉