Can You Recognise an Alien? This is What Extraterrestrials May Look Like
by Sean Martin November 1, 2017 (express.co.uk)
• Scientists AT the University of Oxford say they are the first to apply evolutionary theory to predict what extraterrestrial beings may look and act like.
• The basics for biological evolution should be the same across the entire universe, therefore extraterrestrial beings may be indistinguishable from human beings.
• The Oxford team presumes that complex alien life arises from extreme events which force organisms to evolve into higher level multi-cellular organisms. “We believe evolutionary theory offers a unique additional tool for trying to understand what aliens will be like, and we have shown some examples of the kinds of strong predictions we can make with it.”
• “There are potentially hundreds of thousands of habitable planets in our galaxy alone. We can’t say whether or not we’re alone on Earth, but we have taken a small step forward in answering, if we’re not alone, what our neighbours are like.”
• [Editor’s Note] Well, at least they are talking about extraterrestrial life now. It’s one ‘small step’ at a time for mainstream academia.
SCIENTISTS may have figured out what aliens look like and they could be a lot more familiar than previously thought, according to new research.
Rather than being other-worldly, scientists have claimed.
According to new research, the basics for biological evolution should be the same across the entire universe, meaning natural selection on any planet could have led aliens to look exactly like the human race.
Scientists from the University of Oxford are the first to apply evolutionary theory to predict what extraterrestrial beings may look and act like.
Sam Levin, a researcher in Oxford’s Department of Zoology, said: “A fundamental task for astrobiologists is thinking about what extra-terrestrial life might be like.
“But making predictions about aliens is hard. We only have one example of life – life on Earth – to extrapolate from.
“Past approaches in the field of astrobiology have been largely mechanistic, taking what we see on Earth, and what we know about chemistry, geology, and physics to make predictions about aliens.
“In our paper, we offer an alternative approach, which is to use evolutionary theory to make predictions that are independent of Earth’s details.
“This is a useful approach, because theoretical predictions will apply to aliens that are silicon based, do not have DNA, and breathe nitrogen, for example.”
The team presume alien life may be influenced by the same environmental factors that take place on Earth, where complex life arises from major transitions – extreme events which force a group of separate organisms evolve in to one higher level organism such as cells becoming multi-cellular organisms.
Mr Levin said: “We still can’t say whether aliens will walk on two legs or have big green eyes. But we believe evolutionary theory offers a unique additional tool for trying to understand what aliens will be like, and we have shown some examples of the kinds of strong predictions we can make with it.
“By predicting that aliens undergone major transitions – which is how complexity has arisen in species on earth, we can say that there is a level of predictability to evolution that would cause them to look like us.
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