if humans and aliens evolved independently, why same characteristics?

Hi, i'm a new user on the board. I'll save the introduction... and get on with my question.

From pictures and other sources - there's a general understanding that aliens (no matter what race) have similar charactersitics as humans

we all have 1 head, 2 eyes, 4 limbs (2 arms, 2 legs), fingers, a mouth, 2 ears, 2 nostrils. we walk on 2 feet and we stand up straight.

is this a coincidence?
I'm a life science student at the university of ____ and have some background in genetics. I find it very weird that even though humans and aliens evolved independently of each other in 2 different planets (or assumed), we have VERY similar characteristics.

I have discussed this with a friend who's also interested in this sort of thing and we came up with this:
1) the humanoid shape is "ideal" for intelligent beings
2) the aliens catalyzed (took part in) the evolution of humans

my friend said that considering the developmental evolution achieved w/in the (estimated) 2 mil yrs of existence of humans, it sounds rather impossible on an evolutionary scale (for pre-humans to develop to the present humans)

please discuss.

[edit on 4-4-2007 by yuwing]

Well if you think logically about it, an intelligent creature like ourselves would best be put together basically the way that we are put together lol. How could you improve a human's body to make it more efficient?

I have a feeling that "bipedalism" (if that is even a word) is very common throughout the universe simply because it is the most convenient "shape" for intelligent beings...

well 4 arms would be good haha and 2 eyes on the back of our heads to look out for UFOs in the skies. and 2 more legs so we can run faster than goats.

of course i'm just joking

this supposition is flawed from the beginning in that the physical description of aliens are based on what has been portrayed in fiction and popular media. species tend to evolve in order to suit their environment. with that in mind any aliens we might find in gaseous (jupiter-type) planets might not look humanoid in any way at all. they might look like giant jellyfish floating in the atmosphere with helium-filled bags for buoyancy. and the dominant predator in such a planet might look like whales with wings.

we'll never know what aliens will look like unless we first find evidence of life forms on another planet. thus, methinks this is just an exercise in wasteful speculation at this point.

this page provides an interesting read regarding the possibility of alien life.

[edit on 5-4-2007 by toreishi]

Originally posted by toreishi
this supposition is flawed from the beginning in that the physical description of aliens are based on what has been portrayed in fiction and popular media. species tend to evolve in order to suit their environment. with that in mind any aliens we might find in gaseous (jupiter-type) planets might not look humanoid in any way at all. they might look like giant jellyfish floating in the atmosphere with helium-filled bags for buoyancy. and the dominant predator in such a planet might look like whales with wings.

[edit on 5-4-2007 by toreishi]

thank you, I was just about to get in to that, but I will add. About 2 million years ago it was homo erectus that started to spread through out eurasia. This does not mean that we present day humans are direct descendants to those same homo erectus. Scientists are now finding out that our direct common ancestor did not leave africa until about 66 thousand years ago and did not see the light of day until about 89 thousand years ago. During our history of evolution, there have been many hominids living along side of us at different times, with different characteristics. As the environment changed, those characteristics disappeared and reappeared from time to time as they saw fit. As far as "bipedalism" is concerned, I don't think that would be the most advantageous. Look at spiders. They are some of the most extraordinary creatures on earth. Turtles or crocodiles cannot be discounted.

the scorpions are also quite an impressive product of evolution considering that their design hasn't really changed all that much since the early silurian period. and they can also survive nuclear fallout like cockroaches. WOW!

just goes to show that there are more effective and efficient means of locomotion for an organism other than bipedalism

[edit on 5-4-2007 by toreishi]

here's another question about this thread:
www.abovetopsecret.com...


www.redicecreations.com...
The above news article suggests that the medical examiner has done DNA testing on the mummified alien. It is kind of interesting that the examiner could find any DNA at all. Since they are from another planet... shouldn't they at least have a form of genetic information that is different from our own(DNA)?

If there is indeed actual DNA in this mumified alien then i think there's 2 reasons
1) the alien is not really an alien but an extremely mutated humanoid
2) there's a connection between the life on this planet and the life on the alien's planet (possibly master plan of God? or Alien planting the seed of life?)

I have heard that pravda is not exactly a reliable newssource, so I think the answer is #1.

[edit on 5-4-2007 by yuwing]

Well, I've been studying the idea of who is the alien here and who isn't. I think we may have come from another planet, and were brought here. This would explain why the fossil record doesn't match homo sapiens very well.

In addition, interacting with this particular physical dimension and visible/audible spectrum, may have some bearing on why things are in stereo (eyes and ears, for example) as opposed to something more intense or less intense (electromagnetically)

Originally posted by undo
In addition, interacting with this particular physical dimension and visible/audible spectrum, may have some bearing on why things are in stereo (eyes and ears, for example) as opposed to something more intense or less intense (electromagnetically)

i believe you're on to something here... IMO most beings that would evolve and exist in this dense flesh n blood dimension, or interact with it anyway, would likely have two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, two arms, etc.. probably physical biproducts of the need for balance or equilibrium in a reality with greater or lesser degrees of gravitational pull.

Originally posted by yuwing
we all have 1 head, 2 eyes, 4 limbs (2 arms, 2 legs), fingers, a mouth, 2 ears, 2 nostrils. we walk on 2 feet and we stand up straight.

is this a coincidence?

Nope.

1 head - minimum requirement to contain a brain. High placed for good cooling

2 eyes - minimum requirement for stereo vision. Without stereo vision, we wouldnt be able to use simple tools such as hammer, we would be hitting our thumbs too much.

2 arms - again minimum requirement to handle tools. We cant do it with 1 hand, can we? We cant do it with 4 legs either. We could do it with 4 arms, sure. But as I said, minimum requirement. Regarding the fingers, we need them to grab things. We DO have some extravagant fingers though, 5 aint really needed.

2 legs - yep you guessed it. Minimum requirement for being to walk, run and stand in a decent manner or maintain balance in awkward positions. Can also be used to climb, one leg wouldnt work very well.

1 mouth - I'm getting tired of saying this, but its minimum requirement for vocal communication. We need to make noise. What kind of noise is irrelevant, but we need that hole (plus we need to eat somehow).

2 ears - Same with eyes, minimum requirement for stereo audio.

2 nostrils - Now that got me stumped. I dont know why we have two, one should do just fine. Then again, it IS just one, isnt it?

In short, we meet the minimum requirement for just about everything needed for a functional being that can use tools, communicate (in terms of both talking, waving and hearing) and traverse the globe.

It would stand to reason that aliens may be based on the same principle of minimum requirements.

What is NOT taken in account here however is size. Why the "Nordics" would be essentially identical in size is beyond me, since not even different human races equal in average size.

[edit on 5-4-2007 by merka]

Originally posted by merka
We DO have some extravagant fingers though, 5 aint really needed.

I actually think that 5 fingers is perfect. If you took away the pinky then it would in turn make the palm much smaller. 1 thumb and only 3 fingers is not good enough in my opinion... that is why we have 4 fingers. Extra "grabbing capability" and widens the palm...

Originally posted by Diplomat

Originally posted by merka
We DO have some extravagant fingers though, 5 aint really needed.

I actually think that 5 fingers is perfect. If you took away the pinky then it would in turn make the palm much smaller. 1 thumb and only 3 fingers is not good enough in my opinion... that is why we have 4 fingers. Extra "grabbing capability" and widens the palm...

Well yeah, its better considering how our hand is designed, but just for the sake of a "hand" its not needed. Theoretically 2 long and equally strong fingers would do it. It doesnt offer much flexiblity though.

What gets me is you never hear of four legged aliens that would be similar to cats or dogs. Yet you always hear about aliens with the same characterristics. Although genrally i think that they clone each other as they do not have any sex organs or breats which would be needed to have kids the way we do.

Originally posted by souls
As far as "bipedalism"

is concerned, I don't think that would be the most advantageous. Look at spiders. They are some of the most extraordinary creatures on earth. Turtles or crocodiles cannot be discounted.

Which is well and good...

However, I don't think that spiders, turtles or crocodiles are going to be colonising other planets or star systems in the future, right? They're limited to living on the rock where they are, unless they get transported by us.

Our form and function makes us the most dominant species, albeit, with the most genocidal bent as well.

I'm not at all surprised that aliens may have similar physical characteristics to us. It seems like intelligence favours this optimised form. Why would nature propogate an inefficient system?

Quite simply - if you think about it - the creatures that may be visiting this planet are more likely to be like us because their existing environment is similar to ours.

I'm not saying that there aren't fantastic highly evolved spider-like/jelly like creatures on other planets - I hope there are - but the fact is that those kind of biological entities wouldn't flourish here without extensive help and ecological change because their exoskelton structure would collapse under our gravitational conditions - (thats why spiders generally have only evolved to small sizes)

Our upright, bipedal structure suits perfectly the conditions we encounter here on earth, under a yellow star in our temperate zone. Life may exist in other places, in different forms, but the ones interested in where WE live, will generally be similar to ourselves.

I've theorized for a while that the missing link in our earthly evolution was through the intervention of EBE's. It seems plausable that our evolution from cave dwelling trogladites to the somewhat intelligent homo sapiens is from genetic manipulation from extraterrestrial species.

First in response to the person that mentioned aliens never look like dogs etc.. my response would be.. can dogs use tools and build things? because any race that advances technologically would need to be able to do that. common sense explains why aliens might be more humanoid in form. Because Humanoid is the ideal form for development with tools and such.

Second. Who ever said that the gray's are aliens? because they have craft that move through the sky that means they must come from another origin? We have space shuttles.. does that mean we are no longer from earth?
The Hopi Indians have many very old legends that go back to previous catastrophic events that threatened to wipe out our species at those points in time but according to the legends we were helped out by our brothers that live in the earth. A race of "ant" people who took us down into the earth and shared their food with us until it was safe for us to return to the surface.
If you were to combine the characteristics ofa human with an ant.. you might come up with the Gray's ... just a though. But perhaps they are not alien but just not of our surface world.

I think a sentient reptilian would be in the works, look at the dinosaurs. Maybe dinosaurs were not reptilians as we know them today but another species altogether. More like a reptilian bird.

Maybe we are all hybrids, God is not limited.

Interestingly, we are carbon based life forms and all carbon based atoms have 6 electrons, 6 protons and 6 neutrons.

Suppose it doesn't matter the ideology, or origin, one has to examine the result.

[edit on 5-4-2007 by clearwater]

What if the aliens prove to be, "humans", from the future? That would explain the similarities now wouldn't it?

If they are from another place then I agree with the posters that stated they would have to live in an enviroment very similar to ours.

We don't evolve to become the perfect species. We evolve to become the perfect species in our enviroment.

If we put people in a ship & sent them off to a nearby star, there would probably be no returning inhabitants. Many generations would have lived & died, ( unless astronauts could be frozen for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. ). Therefore the offspring of these "star" people would probably not be able to withstand earth's enviorment. They would be crushed by gravity, disease, etc..

They will have evolved into a new species, ones that are best suited for space travel. Does this make any sense?

2PacSade-

spelling

[edit on 5-4-2007 by 2PacSade]

Originally posted by yuwing
Hi, i'm a new user on the board. I'll save the introduction... and get on with my question.

From pictures and other sources - there's a general understanding that aliens (no matter what race) have similar charactersitics as humans

we all have 1 head, 2 eyes, 4 limbs (2 arms, 2 legs), fingers, a mouth, 2 ears, 2 nostrils. we walk on 2 feet and we stand up straight.

I deny that there is any such general understanding outside the mythosphere. the reason the mythical aliens look like us is because we created them.

What real aliens look like - or whether they even have bodies - is in my view, completely unknown.