Alien biology

[Tommio]

I know i'm going to get slated for this but I don't understand why alien life would not be humanoid, or bipedal.

 

If there are similar conditions on an alien world and earth i cannot think why there would not be the possibility for alien life like ours. I'm not saying there would be, but there could be.

 

Common beleif is that we evoled into the shape we are from a single cell. Now that would mean we are a successful shape/function, to me anyway.

 

I never have understood the opposition to humanoid/bipedal life. We have nothing to base any 'theories' on so as far as i am concerned they are guesses. we will just have to wait - a while.

 

oh yeah and MIB's aliens were for a 'comedy' (loosely used) and designed to fit into the feeling of the film.

[AzurePhoenix]

It's certainyl a possibility. The problem is, without the ability to study life on any more worlds than our own dirt-clod, we can in no way imagine what routes life might take. After examinging a few more living worlds, it might be easier to determine the range of forms life might take, as well as the likelyhood of similar beings, or it just might blow us away witht the sheer unique alieness of it all. BUt at the time of course, we have no other lifeforms to study and compare with.

[Ophiolite]

I know i'm going to get slated for this.....

I'm taking that as an invitation.

I don't understand why alien life would not be humanoid' date=' or bipedal.

If there are similar conditions on an alien world and earth i cannot think why there would not be the possibility for alien life like ours. I'm not saying there would be, but there could be.[/quote']I think what is typically challenged is the notion that humanoid life forms would be the commonest (or perhaps the only) form of intelligent life. This does seem improbable.

• Bi-lateral symmetry does dominate metazoan life forms today, but
  
• Early Metazoan life forms displayed other symmetries (google 'Burgess Shale fauna")
  
• Plants are not (generally) bi-lateral
  
• Colonial animals are not bi-lateral
  

So, there is not necessarily a preference for bilateralism. The preponderance of bi-lateral forms may represent a survival advantage or it may represent chance.

 

Humans have evolved as a consequence of a lengthy and complex series of chance events. It is likely that had any of these events been different, even in a small way, that the resultant life forms would also have been different. The chance of a humanoid form evolving, by chance, although not zero, seems to me to very low.