What might the representatives of extraterrestrial life look like? A variety of astrobiologists, writers and artists are trying to answer this question, ultimately bringing images of Vulcans and Klingons into our world, as well as other exotic forms that no earthly form is like. But often the vision of these artists is limited. As noted by a research group at Oxford University, all astrobiological attempts to "draw" extraterrestrial life, as a rule, took earth life as a basis and extrapolated it using chemistry, geology and physics.
Seems logical, doesn't it? For example, eyes are ubiquitous on our planet - would it be logical to find them in aliens too? We are carbon-based lifeforms, so would you expect lifeforms on the other side of the galaxy to be carbon-based as well?
However, according to researchers at Oxford, who published a study in November 2017 in the International Journal of Astrobiology, natural selection is the strongest foundation on which we can base our predictions about extraterrestrial life; natural selection remains the directional force that leads us to the life we know. In the absence of a creator, the authors emphasize, natural selection is necessary for the development of an organism, and we probably would not consider it an organism if it had not passed through natural selection.
Although natural selection is essential for life, scientists add that the development of complex life requires significant transitions, when several parts of the body "strive towards the same goal." These transitions, in turn, are caused by restrictive environmental conditions. Combine this line of thought with the more mechanistic extrapolations of chemistry, geology, and physics, and you have a more reliable way of predicting an alien's shape.
And what could this shape be? Scientists definitely do not point to the Klingons and Vulcans as examples, but they may indeed be more like us than we think, and so many believe.
Cambridge paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris believes aliens may be very much like us, thanks in part to convergent evolution, an aspect of natural selection that results in the independent evolution of key biological traits such as eyes and wings.
Birds and bats, for example, independently developed the ability to fly. An alien life form that emerged from the same natural selection process may well develop similar adaptations for navigating the environment. Their eyes may be very different from ours, but they serve the same purpose.
Conway Morris even goes so far as to apply this principle to cognition. He argues that human intelligence can be a cosmic inevitability, although the physical brain itself can be quite inhuman.
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And if aliens think like us, does that mean that they philosophize like us? Writer Scott Bakker thinks so. He believes intelligent aliens will be attracted by the same unknowns that concern us here on Earth. They may also be interested in what aliens look like and how they might think.
Ilya Khel
