Sci-fi productions from Star Wars to Star Trek often present aliens as somewhat (or completely) like us. Of course, this may be a budget issue, as wearing a seven-sleeved alien suit can be far more expensive than asking viewers to believe life evolved in a distant galaxy long ago, according to Mark Hamil.
However, there are also some scientists who think that alien species may or may have evolved into something very close to humans. And although they are not the majority, they are not so few in number. Everything, “why does everything keep turning into crabs?” It leads to convergent evolution, also known as the answer to the question.
Convergent evolution is explained in Wikipedia as “a term that describes and describes the formation of similar biological characteristics between species and lineages that are not closely related to each other”. Whales and bats with echolocation, flight mechanisms of birds, insects, pterosaurs and bats, and many similar features are given as examples of this concept. It is argued that the similarities usually emerge thanks to the location conditions.
convergent evolution
Those who argue that the fact that this situation took place on Earth means that it makes sense for it to occur elsewhere in the universe are talking about exactly this. With similar environments, it’s possible for alien creatures to develop similar traits that fit those environments. If there are enough Earth-like planets out there, and given how well humans have adapted to life on Earth, human-like aliens may be dominating their own planet.
As Professor Simon Conway Morris of the University of Cambridge said in a recent interview with Science Focus, “It can be said with reasonable confidence that the probability of something akin to human evolution is indeed quite high. And given the number of potential planets we now have good reason to think they exist.” “Even if every 100 rolls of the dice get the correct result, it still leads to a scattering of minds like us.”
So, according to him, there may be many human-like creatures waiting for us in the universe. Of course, many different crabs can also be found. However, scientists do not agree on this.
“While the list of examples of convergence is impressive, it wouldn’t be hard to make an equally impressive list of non-convergences,” wrote Jonathan Losos, professor of organism and evolutionary biology, in 2017, quoting everything from sauropod dinosaurs to the duck. Losos’ particular focus was on New Zealand, where native land mammals were absent.
“If the outcome of natural selection is deterministic, then a bird-dominated world will look very similar to life elsewhere on the planet,” he writes, and continues: “But of course not. Kiwis may live a lifestyle like a badger, but not at all. Add flightless parrots, carnivorous parrots, bats that feed on leaf litter, and more, and we can forget the convergence hypothesis altogether. New Zealand is an evolutionary world apart, its evolutionary outcome is unique.”
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