An easy way to explain humanoid life in Andromeda is that the Andromeda initiative wasn't the first group of people to cross the void from the milky way. Perhaps Andromeda is populated by many milky way "escapees" who fled the reaper attacks over the last billion years.
Love it, it's not like we're the first to think of running away. The Angara are of course an actual created species, and the Kett are assimilators. We haven't actually met any sapient naturally evolved life in the Andromeda Galaxy yet. We have no clue what the Jaarden look like.
Same reason Andromeda had horrible faces. Spent all that time making the customized face option. I'll be damned if its only used at the start of the game.
Halo's aliens make the most sense. They all have similar general shapes to humans, though with some exceptions, but their physiologies are significantly different from that of humans. The reason why they have a similar general structure to humans would be simply that that shape is ideal for technological advancement. Dolphins are impressively intelligent, but without opposable thumbs, or at least precise prehensile tentacles, you won't see them flying off to the moon anytime soon. Likewise, if Halo's Sangheili, Unggoy, etc. didn't have thumbs, none of those species could have advanced to the point of where we see them in Halo, with or without Forerunner or Covenant interference. They would just be really clever animals with paws or fins or whatever.
@@kickme8x That's also the first thing that crossed my mind 😂 but then I was like, consider the stuff that happens to our hands all the time when we manipulate objects. Cuts, burns, splinters, bruises, etc. Imagine that constantly happening to their penises. That would be a very effective deterrent from technology 🤣
It makes sense in the simulated universe idea. The coders of the universe couldn't be bothered to design a new version of every animal for every world so they just reskinned a number of standard models. That's also why different planets have tigers or horses etc..
Simulation of a universe presents it's own problems. I'm not a big fan of it because actual conscious beings are redundant and a drain on resources as well as the simulation itself being a total redundant waste of time, energy and resources.
@@wiebeboom8518 This is the theory I've heard (I'm just a somewhat casual fan of the series, so take it with a grain of salt). Basically, the Doctor is one of the last remaining members of his species after removing them from reality due to story reasons. Ever since then, The Doctor has roamed the universe helping out other alien species. Even if they didn't intend to, though, The Doctor's subconcious made it so that they felt more empathy with aliens that looked like the Time Lords because they were lonely. And because the Doctor has been leaping back and forth through space and time, it ends up with them inadvertently promoting the evolution of species that look like the Time Lords. TLDR: Basically, alien species were more likely to survive if they looked like the Doctor.
I like Stargate's. Its not that different to Star Trek's bar perhaps for a tinge of Mass Effect, but the few species we have no basis to think the Ancients interacted with end up kinda out there. Like the Goa'uld and the Reetou.
The explanation I usually apply to science fiction is that due to factors and variables not understood or not understood fully the humanoid body shape is just one of a couple really stable body shapes for living things (especially for intelligence as we know to develop in living things) and that most evolutionary lines on other worlds would eventually lead to the humanoid body shape and/or the other stable body shapes, with mass extinctions resetting the pathways that eventually lead to these body shapes. This however is just an excuse for science fiction stories with humanoid aliens. In reality any life, especially intelligent life, will probably be so different that we may have difficulty recognizing it as life or intelligent. We already have some difficulty with this on our native planet.
ArticBlueFox96 there is a list made somewhere on the internet about what features are required for a species as intelligent as human. I cant remember everything but it included stuff like bipedal, symmetrical,omnivore, stable body temperature, etc. That is, it ignored the possibility of inorganic, non-dna-based life and said nothing about posthuman spacefaring features
In Stargate, the galaxy is full of humans and humanoids (Jaffa) because an alien race took humans from Earth as slaves and populated their empire with them, breeding some of them into a separate species. But the show also has older humanoid species that are never really explained. They also stop addressing the language barrier without explanation very early on...
They have explanations for the more common characters, but some that only appear in one episode or so has little to no explanation. Examples like Ilempiri, Tollen and the pod people
Marina Sirtis was asked one time, "Why aren't there any non-humanoid aliens?" She said, "As soon as we start auditioning non-humanoid actors, we'll have non-humanoid aliens." (makes the most sense for live action anyway)
Similar design under similar circumstances? Exactly my idea. If they come from a world with a similar light spectrum, gravity and terrain, they might develop similar features.
The technical term is Convergent Evolution. Example, shark and dolphin, torpedo shaped, dorsal fin, paired ventral fins, vestigial rear fins, and tail fin. Both predators, but one breathes air, the other water, one spine goes up and and down, the other side to side, and dolphins are hard boned whereas sharks are cartilaginous, but big, basic shapes are the same.
Completely made up reason: All species who evolve into humanoid shapes are actually the same species/civilisation repeating itself. A humanoid civilisation will inevitably invent time travel and settle a world in it's distant past, then lose access to their time travel, regress to an earlier state, forget their history (because it will seem implausible after a few generations), then start again. This cycle repeats itself until all planets that are viable are settled, or the super-timeline of the humanoids ends with an extinction. This is purely for kicks and giggles, I didn't read this off anything nor do I believe this to be any kind of fact.
Really interesting but this would require the same species to lose time travel tech just to reinvent it again. Wouldnt time travel tech be something important you want to keep an eye on if you set up a colony on a planet in the past? I think it would be a really interesting background for a species in scifi but I dont see that happening more than once.
Can't quite fault that, actually. I just assumed people would eventually forget about it and think "it's magic" or "it's fairy tales", but I'm kinda ignoring the blatantly obvious fact that people aren't likely to... lose their tech knowledge.
Bryn Shannon what if the time travel technology is only a one way trip? And humans are sent back in time to different planets as may be a form of execution? Or it could be a situation similar to "TERRA NOVA", that human species is dying and this one-way time travel method is being used to send groups of humans to different planets in the past to preserve human race.
In the Doctor Who universe we have a humanoid-alien that isn't really humanoid. The Martians. Their mechanical armor is humanoid shaped while their bodies are not. It's been revealed that their bodies have a head with a forward facing mouth and eyes, and that they have an arm with a hand-of-sorts with an opposable digit, but as far as we know that is where the similarities end. The humanoid shape is merely a mechanical design on their part.
Maybe aliens *aren't* all humanoid, but they're so alien to us that humanoid is just how our brains interpret them. Maybe *we* aren't even really humanoid, but blob monsters in makeup.
Matt H It's theorized in Mass Effect that no one knows what an Asari looks like because their mental capabilities force anyone who isn't Asari to see them as slightly weird, off-colored versions of their own species. Kinda wish I had that power, only you get to choose how people perceive you. Would totes be a dragon. A poorly disguised dragon in a 'stache and trenchcoat.
I don't think it's like that. I personally think it's because each race looks for similarities to their own race. During the bachelor party conversation you can overhear in ME2, the Salarian focuses on the Asari's flexibility, the Turian focuses on the crest, and the human focuses on... everything else, I guess.
@@NotYourRealMom Imagine being a species in which you could be nearly anything you want to be within the limits of imagination ( and probably under known biology or general probable science). What do you think that even be like?
And you can actually read blob emotions! If it tries to kill you, it doesn't like you, if it tries to get you pregnant, it likes you, simple as that :P
_We are not descended from prey!_ How did that misconception become so widespread? Sure, there were always animals that killed our ancestors (still are in a few cases, though most have been hunted to extinction except in very isolated regions where large-scale human activity just doesn't happen) but we were near the top of the food chain going back eons. Our physiology tells the story of an animal that spends most of its time as a predator: brains that turn animal protein into intelligence, eyes that both face in the same direction, a gait that is very bad for sprinting and very good for the kind of long slow jog that allows us to run down much faster animals that we want either to kill or to capture. Sure our jaws are too weak to tear through the connective tissues of a freshly-killed animal, but that's because we lost the ability as a trade-off for a skull large enough to hold our brains, not because we never had it to begin with. Had that enlarged skull not made it possible to learn how to cook meat and invent tools like knives for butchering the carcasses of prey animals, the loss of those strong jaws would have spelled our doom. Do you really think prey animals could have domesticated the dog? Its ancestors would have literally had ours for breakfast.
You just describe one state in human evolution. How can you know that this version of humanity didnt evolve from prey? Im not saying this makes sense because it just doesnt really. But you talk with 100% certainty and thats not really a thing you can do in evolution.
aperson speaks of a good hypothesis. Comparative contemporary anatomy is used with physiology and the very spotty fossil record to extrapolate an origin story in evolution of a current species. Most of the mammalian predators have similar faces and digestive traits. That is many many tiny mutations going back hundreds of millions of years, unless you ascribe to intelligent design. Digesting animal flesh, itself, is a mutated adaptation. Apes seem to be an in between branch that adapted for both. Tearing teeth and grinding teeth. So humans must have been both predictor and prey for millions and millions of years, back before even protohumans. Some herbivores are incapable of digesting muscle tissue. They never gained the chemistry to utilize predation, even if they were good at it. Again it is a hypothesis aspiring to theory. Evolution is not a completely objective science like Chemistry or Physics.
Humans have traits of both predator and prey, forward facing eyes as opposed to eyes on the sides of our head provides overlapping fields if vision which gives us better depth perception but smaller field of view this is a trait commonly associated with predators. But our teeth are more akin to prey animals because most are flat, bone structure is more if a predators nature, but digestive tract more if a prey characteristic
Academics didn't like H.G. Wells original image of aliens as creepy squid things from _War of the Worlds_ so they latched on to his design in _Man from Year Million,_ and from there the image of the Grey Alien, informing all of modern science fiction, was born?
What about parallell evolution? That some traits are simply so useful that they become prevalent in nature (Earth-like nature or so-called garden worlds to use a Mass Effect term) more often than not?
Yea and we have many examples of parallel evolution on earth. Flight evolved independently 3 different times (Bugs, Birds, Pteradons, plus birds and pteradons evolved beaks independently) not to mention at first glance a cetacean looks just like a fish, but are actually mammals. One of the biggest examples is in Placental and Marsupial mammals. placental sabre-toothed cats (Machairodontinae) and the South American marsupial sabre-tooth (Thylacosmilus) are completely different species but are both very similar.
@@ASlickNamedPimpback human evolution was very complex, stuff like eyes, and wings can occur in any bodyplan. we needed our ancestry, our path, etc to become to the way we are. If our ancestors had a different bodyplan it would have went differently.
@@jasonbourne1126 Yes but it can still happen. An organism in the water with 4 fins can get up on land, and eventually evolve tetrapods. Eyes are a very useful trait, I can see any alien planet with lots of light having predators hunt with eyes, and prey detect said predators with eyes. They’re just too useful. The only cases of eye-devolution is either when an organism gets trapped in a dark-environment (caves) or is too short lived or small to be able to use/develop them. Unless on a low-gravity world, wings only really occur on small creatures. A tree-climbing omnivore would have no use for wings, it would be occupying a niche occupied by many competitive species. Trees would also likely evolve, plants want sunlight and rainwater the most, so a tall plant with a large canopy and secure “trunk” would very easily evolve. It’s even happened on earth with fungi. A species with eyes, dexterous paws to grasp “tree” branches, forward-facing eyes to judge branch distances when moving branch-to-branch may be driven out of their natural habitat and forced to live on the ground, slowly evolving to walk. There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, and if habitable planets are 1 in a million, that’s still 400000 planets just in the neighborhood, and each planet has had (if we use the oldest fossil on earth as the start of all life in the galaxy, even though planets could’ve had life much longer) has had 3.5 billion years to evolve atleast one similar species.
News flash and spoiler the Angara are a genetically engineered species that can shock you or put a pulse out to damage sensitive electronics and can even communicate with it much like how a eel creates a electrical current. They absorb energy from sunlight though their skin and not getting sunlight is bad for them. The kett share similarities with both the Borg and Kobali they assimilate others dna forcefully and useful traits into their genome and make people into them the only difference is the person is alive rather than dead. The thing is that aliens often are bipedal is because its easier to use tools and technology the Elcor from Mass Effect are quadrupeds they have to have assistance in using tech and tools and wear cannons on their backs assisted by VIs when they go to war, I still don't know how one came to smoke a cigar? Who gave him the cigar put it in his mouth and lit it for him?
Saying we got smart because we had to outsmart predators seems like a pretty weak point considered that the most sophisticated examples of intelligence on our planet occur among carnivores and omnivores.
Also, brains aren't really the best evolutionary investment for the short term. Sure they have long term gain but they may be just as likely to kill your species off. They require a lot of energy to operate especially intelligent ones like humans. For prey, other defense mechanisms work like having shelter, having enough numbers so a few dying doesn't affect you, and poison.
Well... we are omnivores. And our brain actually needed meat to grow. When our ancestors moved away from eating mostly leafes, roots and bark discovering burnt animals can be digested better and with utilizing fire to cook meat, we started to evolve into humans.
ruclips.net/video/G_hl804lSfc/видео.html - When Humans Were Prey, PBS Eons Humans were definitely prey. They may also have been predators at the same time, as food webs can have many layers.
Limi V Oh my god I kept wanting to mention this video but didn’t know where to put my comment! I just watched it the other day and the fact that people seem to think we weren’t prey is quite interesting. Like a lion could easily take us down even today the only reason we’re not prey anymore is because of our tools. A bear is like what twice the size of an average man? How could we not have been prey at one point? We were only recently at the top of the food chain when taking all of human history into account.
Quantum level predetermination: All life everywhere has the same base template and options. any differences are because of evolution(adaptation to environment)
Erik von Danniken put out ‘Chariots of the Gods?’, the basis of the “Ancient Alien Hypothesis” in 1968 in West Germany. While TOS did start earlier, first airing in 1966, the TNG episode explaining the humanoid form aired in 1993, 25 years after von Danniken’s book was published.
Mass Effect's first book actually had a section where's races of the galaxy tried to come up with theories why nearly all of them were humanoid in appearence. Apparently the most well accepted theory is that the form has many natural advantages over other ones. Basically the prey/evolution theory.
One of my favorite explanations of this is from the uplift trilogy by David Brin. The long and short of it is that life that is too dis-similar (e.g. oxygen breathers and hydrogen breathers) just refuse to make contact with each other except in carefully controlled situations and go to great lengths to keep that from happening.
AFAIK the oxygen-breathers simply can't understand the hydrogen-breathers, and vice versa, correct? The primary difference is the different mentality caused by the different environments we evolved in. Apart from that, the prevalence of humanoid oxygen-breathers is because the first race was humanoid, so the races it uplifted became humanoid, and so forth.
About the whole needing to be smart to survive predators. It also works vise versa, predators need to be smart to hunt prey. That is why cats, and dolphins are so smart. We were prey, but then became predators, both helped in the development of our intelligence.
I think Mormonism would actually provide a pretty good explanation. To simplify, in Mormonism, God is an alien from another planet who ascended to God hood, and so got to make his own planet. And pretty much, when playing spore, God decided to make the aliens look like him because that’s the way he likes it. I think an explanation like this would be an interesting way of explaining why so many aliens could be humanoid, as well as having only a handful of other templates, such as squid like aliens or centaur-esque aliens. Or you can explain that the first lifeforms to attain God hood created all sapient life afterwords, and each subsequent God designed aliens in their image because they like creatures that look like them. There’s also tons of potential’s for jokes, like having a planet that’s dominated by anthropomorphic animals explicitly because the God of that particular planet was a furry.
Because like all those shows tell of, we (Mankind) have an obsession with ourselves and creating our self image in a form that we imagine could one day be us of one day was us; and we do it to also immortalize the Human form into the infinite abyss of all space and time by putting it onto the web and etc.; we cannot except the fact that one day we will be no more, so all of us (whether people will admit it or not) want to be remembered, and we hope that it is in a good light; this drives us to make positive "forms" of ourselves to forever live on, at least in our minds, hearts, and technology. Which, is why we have so many people in shows and movies trying to become immortal or make their minds into something immortal like technology...
lol aaah I go with Pleep Plop. You might be right in generell that humans are that way and people who choose to work in showbusiness maybe more. But thats far from the topic.
Yo, just stumbled on this channel, and while I like the idea, and most of the content, I disagree with your starting premise in the video - well, not so much disagree, as simply I am aware of the fact that it is simply incorrect - namely, the idea that "humans evolved from prey" is completely missing reality by a thousand miles. Nowhere in history of human evolution since the oldest known ancestor mammals were human prey animals, unless you would decide that ALL animals that aren't predators are prey - which is stupid. Primates, including humans are descendants of a tiny scavenger possum creature that was a scavenger, not a herbivore, and almost all primates alive now or extinct are scavengers. Only a couple like for example silverback gorillas are herbivores, most, humans included, are omnivores. Humans did not evolve front eyes to "see predators easier", we evolved them to see better in 3d to spot minute details easier. We didn't evolve to walk on hind legs only to see predators faster either - it is a giant hindrance to avoiding predators in fact since not only WE are easier to spot, we also can't run so fast to escape. It is great for climbing and traversing long distances though. And finally, we didn't become a successful species because we "outsmarted" predators, we became a successful species because we lost fur. Most mammals regulate heat through mouth and ears only, we regulate heat through sweating - ergo we can stay active longer and tire slower than any other mammal (to scale for size of course), and that is why we could traverse furthest in search for food - be it dead animals, or berries, roots, and all that. Eventually humans figured out that their tracking set up of front eyes and hind legs can work great to chase animals. Animals can run faster, but they also tire exponentially faster, therefore, with a group tracking the marks the animal left it is possible to chase ANY animal down, including predators (I recommend finding footage of chimps fending off big cats for reference as to how). With that basic communication and simple tool use also developed, and with excess energy from protein gained from eating fresh meat, there was more room for brain growing larger and more complex, allowing for more successful persistence hunting, better coordination, better tools, and therefore more energy to develop brain. And from there it rolled exponentially. THAT is exactly how human civilisation was made, and that is why we look like we do. Thank you for (potential) reading, I give thumbs up to rest of the video.
ruclips.net/video/G_hl804lSfc/видео.html - When Humans Were Prey, PBS Eons Humans were definitely prey. They may also have been predators at the same time, as food webs can have many layers.
There's a scene in one of the Mass Effect games where a Salarian gets thrown a bachelor party by his shipmates, complete with a scantily clad Asari dancer. The three start arguing about wether Asari resemble Humans, Salarians or Turians, eventually leading to the conclusion by the human that the Asari use their innate neurochemical abilities to alter their appearance in the eyes of other species, so they will always look "like them".
You missed Babylon 5, which also had the progenitor race theory, but as an after though. Races evolved naturally, but then were messed with by the ancient races. It also suggested that evolution takes a pattern, and the humanoid configured works for larger animals. Medical Artists (yes there is such a thing) have tried to create six limed creatures, such as whose from the Princess of Mars books, and found it just does not work.
ironwarmonger Oh, they have, have they? I've often wondered about this. Except for insects (and except for evolving to avoid poisons), who haven't really evolved in millions of years, and some aquatic animals, almost everything else has four limbs. I wondered if it was just the most effecient, or if there was another reason. ;^)
Jim Benn Just think about what possible advantages two extra arms or legs would have ? Well... nothing really. Two additional legs would help us to stand more stable, but we can do that with only two of them just as good. Two additional arms would be practical to fullfill complex Engineering tasks, but there is only a tiny fraction of our race which regularily partakes in such actions, and for most of us these secondary arms would just be a waste of ressources.
Raven Knight See? That's what happens when you add genuine interest to half-assed thinking! (ME, ME! I mean me! 😃) I completely agree with what you said. I was kinda wondering when I typed that, whether it was "independent evolution", or guided, or evolution based on what was already in the DNA. I was basically following through on all the options presented in the vid. 🙂
Some stuff is convenient by nature itself - living things need to have senses, means of movement, aquisition of energy and homeostasis. Especially if they evolve to be intelligent species. They need to have free limbs to manipulate objects, they need to have basic senses - like sight (especially if they are space faring race - you can't have astronomy without sight), they need to have means of communication as they need to build society and civilisation. That mean - some elements are must to exist to make species sapient and capable. So any alien race will have more or less equivalent of human body parts.
Maybe it's like the same theory that we can't invent a new new color until we see it idea. A lot of our alien constructs in movies and games are still based on animals and plants we see on earth. Maybe hybridized or mutated a bit with artistic ideas, but it's still familiar. I'm just throwing the idea out there.
In the fiction I'm working on, I play with the "Meddling/Common progenitor" thing, where many worlds were actively altered and genetic material introduced. But I take it to the next step where there are beings that were not meddled with and evolved in radicly different environments producing radicly different body types. Jellyfish that live in the deep atmospheres of gas giants, low gravity Arthropods and all kinds of things. this produces friction between the "Seed" races, and the "Exotics" the twist, humans are not a Seed race, no evidence of any tampering in our planet's history or in our fossil records, we just evolved this way naturaly, and that throws a wrench in the whole "Seed races are inherently better" debate.
You could do the Contact solution (it's pretty stupid) the aliens have shapeshifted into a form that we recognise so we don't freak out due to their appearance
The Japanese Crest of the Stars franchise has no aliens. The closest analogue, the Abh, were a genetically engineered slave race made by humans and sent out into the universe to explore it and find colonizable worlds. Contact was lost, and the Abh created their own civilization.
I feel like Halo is a happy medium, most are generally humanoid but still have lots of varying and unique designs. For example, you look at an Elite and I'm sure the first thing your mind gleans is 'yeah, that definitely ain't from Earth'.
convergent evolution. eyes have independently evolved many times on earth. same for wings and legs. sometimes different starting points led the the same ending.
Reminds me of how on an aesthetic level, canines, felines, foxes and bears all strongly resemble each other, with only minor differences in detail between them. If one of them gained sentience and was like "why does everything look like a cat?" lol
As for Doctor Who, one theory Tom Baker's Doctor postulated in "Image of the Fandahl" was that the presence of a 12 million year old skull somehow influenced human evolution.
stephen hawkinns is actually a wizard and made sentient rabbits who can poop out random humanoids by the millions, he grew one on a lot of planets and they evolved to become all the sentient humanoids alive (i'am not high)
I'm writing a story where every planet with intelligent life was created by a god or gods specific to that solar system, and the bipedal design was created by one of the very first gods in the universe. Not many gods are truly imaginative, so most just copy that design with slight environmental alterations
Im working on a story where all the aliens ARE actually humans that have just evolved to suit their colonized planets. Now they each believe themselves to be the pure strand and the others to be the aliens.
"Why is a soap bubble round?" In order to become a space exploring race. You have to have some absolutes checked off. (1) You need manipulating appendages for one. You're going 100% of nowhere without the ability to manipulate the world around you in a precise and delicate fashion. (2)You're gonna need metallurgy as well. I've seen sci-fi that proposes growing organic solutions to space ships. Like in Starship Troopers. But I don't buy it. For Metallurgy you're gonna need fire. Or you'll be dependent on a few hot spots on your home world to do all your smelting from. Stunting growth to a stand still. Fire requires a reactive agent like Oxygen. All things considered I find it hard to believe we'd find almost anything except oxygen being used for this on alien worlds. Other chemical reactions that produce large amounts of heat might be too hard to find in a stable balanced ecosystem. Like how would you keep Florine from reacting with everything in sight and dissolving all life on contact? We're prolly dealing with Oxygen breathers all around with a couple outliers. Oxygen is just too good for burning things. These reactions happen in the open air. So we're looking for land dwellers as well. (3) You'll have to be big. Relatively speaking. You have to be of at least a reasonable size for building and using advanced technology. No matter how smart you are. Computing technology will never be so small that a fist full of black ants would be able to use it. Even a hoard of them couldn't hope to build a radio tower. Human beings can lift about seventy pounds and move it around all day without hurting themselves. It would take a whole swarm of mice all day to move the same thing down the block once. Stone tools are likely to be the first for everyone. If you're too small. Useful stone tools would be too brittle if built for your scale. For the vast majority of history we only had man power to rely on. Even taking in to account lower gravity, there's inertia to worry about. Aliens astronauts are most likely going to be within 50% to 200% our size. This is all just to get a technological civilization off the ground mind you. And of course there should be outliers all over the place that defy our expectations. But given just the three above. Big, land dwelling, oxygen atmosphere (if not breathing) and delicate appendages. Humanoid is actually a pretty good choice for form. There's some debate as to where the brain and sensory organs go. Or how many appendages you might have. But I'd wager most aliens are going to be a relatable size and have recognizable sensory organs analogous to our own. If we find a lot of tetra-pods in our journeys through the stars. I think it actually stands to reason that upright walking (or something like it) designs would be the norm for star explorers in that body design.
One theory goes that there is a finite number of ways you can arrange an organism and still have it be functional, refining this theory leads to the idea that of these functional organisms some of them will be more successful in more varied environments than the others, so the humanoid form is just the most easily adaptable form for life to take
Where did the first Doctor Who explanation come from? I assume either the Virgin or BBC books. I know the second one is from the Big Finish audio Zagreus.
1:00 "We have our heads at the top because that's where we keep our senses." Do you have any idea how stupid that sentence sounds? 1:05 "and our brain close behind them to quickly interpret those senses." You obviously never heard of the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Look at the recurrent laryngeal nerve in a giraffe. The brain and nerves aren't where they are, simply because it looks convenient from the outside.
What's offensive about it? Have a beer and relax, jeez. The video doesn't have a scientific tone to it at all, it's laid back and jokey. The recurrent laryngeal nerve appears to be involved in signaling the larynx and respiratory systems. The brain is indeed situated very close to our sensing organs in order to receive information from them quickly. Every microsecond counts when it comes to natural selection. The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue...
Clone42 Evolution in the giraffe has caused the recurrent laryngeal nerve to elongate through it's entire neck. One end of the nerve is at the head and then goes all the way down to it's heart, around the aortic arch, then all the way back up the neck to the brain. It's a spectacular example of how evolution doesn't give a damn about what we humans think is convenient. Evolution works with whatever designs it has, even if the plan had an unusual start, evolution can't go back and clean up every design flaw. It can only move forward and make the best with what it has. The point being, how humans, giraffes, or any other animal is shaped has nothing to do with human ideas like convenience, or for that matter beauty. Once you start attributing human qualities to nature, you aren't very far away from also saying that something is the way it is because "God" meant it to be that way.
But that don't make his statement incorrect, most animals have their brain and main senors in their head to reduce information lag. This is a known thing and has nothing to do with the laryngeal nerve, seriously why did you even bring that up? Our optic nerves are short for a reason and even then information lag is an issue restricting how quickly we respond to visual information if our eyes were on the tip of our fingers then this delay would be greater. Thus our eyes are in our skull because that is the best place for them to be.
Humanoid shaped is a "good enough" mixture of speed, strength, manual dexterity etc. Nature doesn't select for perfection, but just good enough. A spine allows for upright posture with the necessary gravity resistance. Standing upright allows the use of the forelimbs for grasping food, and later tools. 2 arms and 2 legs gives decent balance without the muscular structure getting in the way of each other. To have more limbs with a spine requires more vertebrae, which means more muscles to stand upright, which means less gravity resistance and more energy needed to not starve to death. So a 4 armed creature with 8 legs will take more food than a 2 armed 2 legged creature of similar size. Ao if there was ever a food shortage over the billions of years it takes to go from single celled to complex , intelligent creature, nature would likely select the more energy efficient model. It is also possible that there are aliens that aren't carbon based lifeforms. If so, how would we even recognise them as lifeforms? A rock could be an alien lifeforms for all we know, but since they have no recognisable hallmarks of what we consider to be required to be identified as a lifeforms, they are just inanimate rocks to us. I mean, how would we communicate? What common goals would we share even if we could? So maybe the reason all aliens are humanoid in appearance, is that that they share enough similarities to each other that we both class each other as lifeforms. We can really only work off what we have seen on our own planet, and as far as we can work out, our "good enough" shape is what allowed us to become the intelligent anxiety monkeys we are today.
7 лет назад+3
All the characters in Star Wars are 'aliens'.Humanoid,yes,but not Human!
Probably because thumbs are OP in evolutionary start up, being bipedal with thumbs allowed us to grasp objects and hurl them at our foes (id like to see squids do that with efficiency), maybe we are just the perfect amount of min maxing on evolutionary scale >thumbs to grasp object >prey brains to help us run and hide (gives us time to evolve without going extinct) >ape curiosity to help us evolve (if we just spent our time running and hiding we would never have made proper tools and civilization) >bipedal so we can maneuver better and to give us height to hurl things from (stones, pointy sticks etc) >vulnerable bodies so we learn to make armor and cloth to protect our weak hides from wounds and different climates >carrying our young within our bodies instead of eggs so we value them more (helps in passing on knowledge and creating familial bonds when you only have few offspring) >pack animal mindset to help us create civilizations (many vs apex = many win) Humans are pretty OP when you think about it, octopus and dolphins are pretty smart but they lack thumbs to build stuff with, in theory octopus could clumsily make some tools but we have yet to witness them do so, and neanderthals show what happens when you value endurance and strength over intelligence (sorry neanderbros, we didn't mean to make you go extinct) In earth at least i think we don't have many land dwelling smart lifeforms is because humans tend to be afraid of everything that is different from them, maybe this was an evolutionary boon in the olden days too but even today you can see the negative remnants of that inherent mindset of tribal affiliation + us and them mentality humans seem to share In conclusion i think we drew the evolutionary lottery and min maxed the shit out of it to ensure our species survived to this day, stands to reason that the same happened with similar species in sci-fi universes, unless a species was born as apex predator that was smart enough to hunt down any smart prey they encountered to prevent the many vs apex situation, that could explain why species similar to zerg / xenomorph / tyranid etc like creatures were able to exist without being eventually hunted down by tool users
Not sure it goes into adding anything further lore wise to this conversation, but I do find it interesting to note how the earliest sci-fi tended to have so much more inhumanoid aliens, going back to the first being War of the Worlds which were extremely different even within our own solar system. Of course it didn't take too long for fiction to start exploring more humanoid creatures once the genre really picked up steam but it does seem like it went through a phase of going either almost entirely human or a jelatenous mass with basically no inbetween, and even now aliens that really push away from human appearance are more the exception escpecially as far as actual characters.
You lost me at "humans evolved a vertical posture to spot predators"; this is bunk. If it were really the case, humans wouldn't be the only mammalian species to become completely bipedal. It's more likely that proto-humans managed to evolve in such a way due to wading, diving and swimming. Add to that the advancement in tool use that made hands more specialized.
So, I was sitting there with my friends last night, watching Doctor Who (s5 to be exact) and my friend commented on Amy trying to flirt with Doctor something like: "Oh come on! You probaply have more similarities in your genome with a pig than with him!" On which my other friend answered this:"Timelords are probably future evolution of the human race". The funny thing is that both me and my friend almost at the same time said: "Timelords are an older race than humans". lol, good to be a nerd.
I saw a Star Trek panel once where a question like this was asked and Marina Sirtis said (probably paraphrasing slightly), "As soon as we start getting non-humanoid actors auditioning for these parts, you'll probably start seeing more non-humanoid aliens in Star Trek."
My guess before I watch the clip: money! But it also has other reason: for legs is the minimum requirement for a stable position (like a table) especially if you want to be mobile. Three might work, but not well enough, und nature seems to work in "mirroring" (four, six, eight limbs etc. pp.). More then four limbs often require a harder shells and or more bones and leads to exoskeleton which reduce the maximum size (due to weights issues). On certain planets that might be less an issue, but four is the best compromise in terms of stability, mobility and weight. If these limbs become legs, arms, wings or fins is secondary. The tails is an extension of the spine not a 5th limb. Furthermore, a species will only become advanced, if they can use at least two limbs as hands. So the upright walk is imho a necessity in the evolution (at least for the most) intelligent species. And with four limbs at the beginning we will end up with the "humanoid" shape. So it is not that unrealistic, that the most look like human in shape. Having lungs, our kind of eyes, or the size comparable to ours is a different matter more related to budget issues. Edit: The BBC series "The future is wild" suggests that Squibs could become the next intelligent species on Earth. But they have eight limbs and thus they have developed in the sea (weight issue) and have no skeleton (again: the weight issue) and thus their size is rather limited on land. Without a spine, the upright walk and a supporting skeleton, it could be next to impossible to lift heavy weights as needed to build a wall. Maybe they figure out something lese: tools. ruclips.net/video/zntV3G0Km3k/видео.html btw: the live span of an octopus is around two years. That is also a huge challenge to become an intelligent species.
In the Original Battlestar Galactica (1978) It was reveal in the series that we Earthlings are the 13th Colony of Humans and during the show the Galactica crew encounter ancient Beings called The Beings of Light. Space:1999 they took encounter several old races,etc.. great video keep up the great work.
I was always a fan of Stragate's explanation that these "aliens" are mostly humans which were transplanted from earth to other worlds for use as slaves.
You forgot the actual, real-life scientific theory for why alien life could potentially look like us: Because maybe an Earth-like biosphere is the only kind of biosphere that can produce what we would recognize as intelligent, sapient life, and maybe humanoid life is the only kind of life that can attain sapience in that kind of biosphere.
You just copied word for word in one segment a government report from Majestic 12 yet tried to sound as if it were your own deduction. Unsubscribed for not even bothering to put something into your own words.
Cats created humanoids as a slave labor force to open their canned food and build little cat habitats. In the beginning humanoids knew this and revered the cats as gods but over time the cats got tired of all that revering so they gradually took on the roll they hold today. This has happened on planets through-out the universe. Also, dogs were originally created to be pets for the cats.
Scott's Wood. you are ignoring the mentioned anthropomorphic effect, its significantly harder to get empathy from an audience when the subject is significantly un human. and even thats not down to lazyness strictly speaking so much as pragmatism. it can and has been done in all mediums but the story invariably becomes about discovering the ability to empathise with something different or failing to discover it. thats a problem when you want to focus your story on something else and simply have the audience accept that the alien(s) in the story as characters rather than others.
In SWTOR, alot of the Alien Races are the creation of a Rakata Super Computer that was found on Belsavis, but thats not exactly cannon, even to legends continuity.
0:12 Its easy yes. The other reason is. We have never met or known of a true alien. So we have nothing to draw on truthfully. Id argue when we do discover aliens. They will be unlike anything we have imagined, making them...alien.
What about the Blues from Perry Rhodan? Would you consider them humanoid? (Serious question. They conform to the body plan of a head with sensorium on top of a symmetric body, but with their four eyes evenly spaced all around their bowl-shaped head on a thin stem or stalk that also contains their voice-mouth.)
For Doctor Who, you have to keep in mind that it isn't just the Milky Way. The entire show is built around giving the characters access to literally the entirety of the universe. They can meet any form of life that has ever existed, so it is merely due to random chance that some of the races look similar, it's just that the overall pool of intelligent species to draw from is so mind-bogglingly big that these one-in-a-trillion coincidences are entirely possible and even, to an extent, common. As for humans looking Time-Lord, the Doctor and Susan simply chose a Timelord-esque race to hide amongst, leading to 'An Unearthly Child' and to the Doctor taking up his role as defender of Earth.
Did enjoy the video, and thanks for your content. The reason why most aliens look humanoid is that when the casting call is made, only humans apply for the roles.
Up until recently: the Vorlons and Shadows of B5, the pods from Arrival, the creature from “The Thing” (not the original carrot-creature, that was just James Arness in a suit.) But even at that, science fiction, Doc Smith, Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein all have human or human-like creatures.
I’ve always supported the “convergent evolution” argument, personally. Like you mentioned at the start of the video, species facing similar situations would evolve on similar lines. We’ve actually seen this happen on Earth with Cacti and Succulents being indistinguishable from one-another unless you know what you’re looking for, despite their evolution on different continents.
I always thought the 'originators' in the TNG looked amazingly a lot like the dominion. Which, I think would have some huge impacts if it was confirmed that perhaps they were precursors or some sort..
Many of our features just make sense. Legs are better than slithering because you can step over obstacles and small dangers. Hands are reasonably efficient and dexterous manipulators - which are critical to the development of technology. Arms to extend those hands allow reach and more dexterity. Arms higher up on our forms mean they don't interfere with motility. Keeping the senses we depend on most heavily near the brain reduces sensory lag. Putting our eyes and ears on a swiveling neck allow us to expand the scope of what we can witness. I could see a species that relied less on sight, more on sound or smell looking more different, but I don't see a completely blind species making the leap to complex technology.
I like the reasoning in K-Pax "Why is a bubble round? Because it's the most efficient shape for a bubble." (paraphrasing)
I like that.
"Why is a soap bubble round? Because it is the most energy efficient configuration" Great movie!
For crabs this works, but not for intelligent tool using species.
But the humanoid shape is actually really really terrible biologically.
@@thedubstepaddict3675 Please expound.
An easy way to explain humanoid life in Andromeda is that the Andromeda initiative wasn't the first group of people to cross the void from the milky way. Perhaps Andromeda is populated by many milky way "escapees" who fled the reaper attacks over the last billion years.
That is actually a good hypothesis.
Love it, it's not like we're the first to think of running away.
The Angara are of course an actual created species, and the Kett are assimilators. We haven't actually met any sapient naturally evolved life in the Andromeda Galaxy yet. We have no clue what the Jaarden look like.
Or maybe the Reaper seeded the Andromeda Galaxy for laugh. No, to have new prey few billion years down the road.
sure it's a good explanation but I think it would be better to just have nonhuman alien life
Maybe the Jaardan were a milky way speicies that fled a few thousand years before the reapers
Because it's easy for the makeup department.
You beat me to it.
Fair enough! Also, B5 never really got into explaining this either :-/
Yours is the only response that matters.
*video ends*
And cosplayers (sometimes)
Why do aliens look human? Because god paid too much money on one template and he is going to get his use out of it.
Because the IT Dept would only pay for one program license.
Writing that down so I can use it later. It's mine now. If you see it in a book or game somewhere, then you know its mine.
Same reason Andromeda had horrible faces. Spent all that time making the customized face option. I'll be damned if its only used at the start of the game.
Turns out our universe is the shitty greenlight game compared to the Half Life 2 of other universes.
the universe was like, "meh. good enough."
God accidentally pressed ctrl-v a few times and couldn't be bothered to backspace in planetary genetic codes :/
Bruhh
Makes sense
If there's a God, then that makes sense to me.
Time constraints. Man, unsustainable crunch hours for creating the universe.
Halo's aliens make the most sense. They all have similar general shapes to humans, though with some exceptions, but their physiologies are significantly different from that of humans. The reason why they have a similar general structure to humans would be simply that that shape is ideal for technological advancement. Dolphins are impressively intelligent, but without opposable thumbs, or at least precise prehensile tentacles, you won't see them flying off to the moon anytime soon. Likewise, if Halo's Sangheili, Unggoy, etc. didn't have thumbs, none of those species could have advanced to the point of where we see them in Halo, with or without Forerunner or Covenant interference. They would just be really clever animals with paws or fins or whatever.
you obviously havent watched hitchhikers guide to the galaxy lol
Dolphins have retractable prehensile penises that can swivel and can be used to feel things a bit like an extra hand
@@kickme8x So in the future, dolphins will "shake dicks" at business meetings?
@@kickme8x That's also the first thing that crossed my mind 😂 but then I was like, consider the stuff that happens to our hands all the time when we manipulate objects. Cuts, burns, splinters, bruises, etc. Imagine that constantly happening to their penises. That would be a very effective deterrent from technology 🤣
Lets not forget the worms, that only got to where they are thanks to covenant help.
It makes sense in the simulated universe idea. The coders of the universe couldn't be bothered to design a new version of every animal for every world so they just reskinned a number of standard models. That's also why different planets have tigers or horses etc..
HOLY SHIT! WE'RE LIVING IN NO MAN'S SKY!!!!!!
AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
lazy devs I tell ya. come on couldn't you spend 15 minutes and maybe take a spore like route? XD
actually I take that back lets not do the spore route I'd like to universe to be actually fully developed
@@thejadedrabbitTJR
You mean creature creator.
Simulation of a universe presents it's own problems. I'm not a big fan of it because actual conscious beings are redundant and a drain on resources as well as the simulation itself being a total redundant waste of time, energy and resources.
Time Lords arent Human looking, Humans are Time Lord looking
Ekstremalnie Nierealny That's even more true if you take the BF audios as canon (which I do ;-) ).
True that
Confusing...
@@wiebeboom8518 Simple. Time Lords evolved earlier.
@@wiebeboom8518 This is the theory I've heard (I'm just a somewhat casual fan of the series, so take it with a grain of salt).
Basically, the Doctor is one of the last remaining members of his species after removing them from reality due to story reasons. Ever since then, The Doctor has roamed the universe helping out other alien species. Even if they didn't intend to, though, The Doctor's subconcious made it so that they felt more empathy with aliens that looked like the Time Lords because they were lonely. And because the Doctor has been leaping back and forth through space and time, it ends up with them inadvertently promoting the evolution of species that look like the Time Lords. TLDR: Basically, alien species were more likely to survive if they looked like the Doctor.
I like Stargate's. Its not that different to Star Trek's bar perhaps for a tinge of Mass Effect, but the few species we have no basis to think the Ancients interacted with end up kinda out there. Like the Goa'uld and the Reetou.
The explanation I usually apply to science fiction is that due to factors and variables not understood or not understood fully the humanoid body shape is just one of a couple really stable body shapes for living things (especially for intelligence as we know to develop in living things) and that most evolutionary lines on other worlds would eventually lead to the humanoid body shape and/or the other stable body shapes, with mass extinctions resetting the pathways that eventually lead to these body shapes.
This however is just an excuse for science fiction stories with humanoid aliens. In reality any life, especially intelligent life, will probably be so different that we may have difficulty recognizing it as life or intelligent. We already have some difficulty with this on our native planet.
ArticBlueFox96 there is a list made somewhere on the internet about what features are required for a species as intelligent as human. I cant remember everything but it included stuff like bipedal, symmetrical,omnivore, stable body temperature, etc.
That is, it ignored the possibility of inorganic, non-dna-based life and said nothing about posthuman spacefaring features
@@sanghelian Why bipedal? Centaur-like aliens sound cool, I'd also love to see some furry ones
@@limiv5272 Centaurs consume too much energy.
@@rommdan2716 Do they? Did you arrive at this conclusion by studying living centaurs in their natural habitat?
@@limiv5272 Oh yeah, I have studied them in midleschool
TL;DW: a bipedal thingy with arms, opposable thumbs, and a rotating head is extremely versatile and minmaxed for intelligence builds
In Stargate, the galaxy is full of humans and humanoids (Jaffa) because an alien race took humans from Earth as slaves and populated their empire with them, breeding some of them into a separate species. But the show also has older humanoid species that are never really explained. They also stop addressing the language barrier without explanation very early on...
They have explanations for the more common characters, but some that only appear in one episode or so has little to no explanation.
Examples like Ilempiri, Tollen and the pod people
Also all humans were basically Ancients
I think there's a dick joke to be made how stargate went from hard scifi to soft scifi pretty fast...
@Niko Virta It's because they could not keep it up for the long haul.
Thats also the explanation in Star Wars legends
Marina Sirtis was asked one time, "Why aren't there any non-humanoid aliens?" She said, "As soon as we start auditioning non-humanoid actors, we'll have non-humanoid aliens." (makes the most sense for live action anyway)
There is the parallel evolution theory, which accounts that a humanoid shape being template is the most ideal for intelligent life.
Similar design under similar circumstances?
Exactly my idea.
If they come from a world with a similar light spectrum, gravity and terrain, they might develop similar features.
The technical term is Convergent Evolution. Example, shark and dolphin, torpedo shaped, dorsal fin, paired ventral fins, vestigial rear fins, and tail fin. Both predators, but one breathes air, the other water, one spine goes up and and down, the other side to side, and dolphins are hard boned whereas sharks are cartilaginous, but big, basic shapes are the same.
Why is the humanoid body plan the best? I could see many reasons to have a squid like body plan.
Why is that? Squids are good where they can be supported in the ocean, but put them on land and they cant really do anything at all
The "Best template" theory is outdated since 200 years.
Completely made up reason:
All species who evolve into humanoid shapes are actually the same species/civilisation repeating itself.
A humanoid civilisation will inevitably invent time travel and settle a world in it's distant past, then lose access to their time travel, regress to an earlier state, forget their history (because it will seem implausible after a few generations), then start again.
This cycle repeats itself until all planets that are viable are settled, or the super-timeline of the humanoids ends with an extinction.
This is purely for kicks and giggles, I didn't read this off anything nor do I believe this to be any kind of fact.
like the creativity
Thanks.
Really interesting but this would require the same species to lose time travel tech just to reinvent it again. Wouldnt time travel tech be something important you want to keep an eye on if you set up a colony on a planet in the past?
I think it would be a really interesting background for a species in scifi but I dont see that happening more than once.
Can't quite fault that, actually. I just assumed people would eventually forget about it and think "it's magic" or "it's fairy tales", but I'm kinda ignoring the blatantly obvious fact that people aren't likely to... lose their tech knowledge.
Bryn Shannon what if the time travel technology is only a one way trip?
And humans are sent back in time to different planets as may be a form of execution? Or it could be a situation similar to "TERRA NOVA", that human species is dying and this one-way time travel method is being used to send groups of humans to different planets in the past to preserve human race.
In the Doctor Who universe we have a humanoid-alien that isn't really humanoid. The Martians. Their mechanical armor is humanoid shaped while their bodies are not. It's been revealed that their bodies have a head with a forward facing mouth and eyes, and that they have an arm with a hand-of-sorts with an opposable digit, but as far as we know that is where the similarities end. The humanoid shape is merely a mechanical design on their part.
Maybe aliens *aren't* all humanoid, but they're so alien to us that humanoid is just how our brains interpret them. Maybe *we* aren't even really humanoid, but blob monsters in makeup.
Matt H It's theorized in Mass Effect that no one knows what an Asari looks like because their mental capabilities force anyone who isn't Asari to see them as slightly weird, off-colored versions of their own species. Kinda wish I had that power, only you get to choose how people perceive you.
Would totes be a dragon. A poorly disguised dragon in a 'stache and trenchcoat.
I don't think it's like that. I personally think it's because each race looks for similarities to their own race. During the bachelor party conversation you can overhear in ME2, the Salarian focuses on the Asari's flexibility, the Turian focuses on the crest, and the human focuses on... everything else, I guess.
I absolutely loved all these comments in this branch of the comments section.
@@NotYourRealMom Imagine being a species in which you could be nearly anything you want to be within the limits of imagination ( and probably under known biology or general probable science). What do you think that even be like?
@@williamburnett3660 Frickin' awesome, is what!
Us Blob Monsters demand respect.
And you can actually read blob emotions! If it tries to kill you, it doesn't like you, if it tries to get you pregnant, it likes you, simple as that :P
I want to fuck the blob
Sargent Schlock approves.
@@simonfrohlich7766
Kind of hard to tell those apart though, since both require being squeezed inside their body.
_We are not descended from prey!_ How did that misconception become so widespread?
Sure, there were always animals that killed our ancestors (still are in a few cases, though most have been hunted to extinction except in very isolated regions where large-scale human activity just doesn't happen) but we were near the top of the food chain going back eons.
Our physiology tells the story of an animal that spends most of its time as a predator: brains that turn animal protein into intelligence, eyes that both face in the same direction, a gait that is very bad for sprinting and very good for the kind of long slow jog that allows us to run down much faster animals that we want either to kill or to capture. Sure our jaws are too weak to tear through the connective tissues of a freshly-killed animal, but that's because we lost the ability as a trade-off for a skull large enough to hold our brains, not because we never had it to begin with. Had that enlarged skull not made it possible to learn how to cook meat and invent tools like knives for butchering the carcasses of prey animals, the loss of those strong jaws would have spelled our doom.
Do you really think prey animals could have domesticated the dog? Its ancestors would have literally had ours for breakfast.
You just describe one state in human evolution. How can you know that this version of humanity didnt evolve from prey? Im not saying this makes sense because it just doesnt really. But you talk with 100% certainty and thats not really a thing you can do in evolution.
aperson speaks of a good hypothesis. Comparative contemporary anatomy is used with physiology and the very spotty fossil record to extrapolate an origin story in evolution of a current species.
Most of the mammalian predators have similar faces and digestive traits. That is many many tiny mutations going back hundreds of millions of years, unless you ascribe to intelligent design. Digesting animal flesh, itself, is a mutated adaptation. Apes seem to be an in between branch that adapted for both. Tearing teeth and grinding teeth. So humans must have been both predictor and prey for millions and millions of years, back before even protohumans. Some herbivores are incapable of digesting muscle tissue. They never gained the chemistry to utilize predation, even if they were good at it.
Again it is a hypothesis aspiring to theory. Evolution is not a completely objective science like Chemistry or Physics.
supposedly human jaws were never goot at eating meat or they changed because we invented coocking
>How did that misconception become so widespread?
Vegan propaganda.
Humans have traits of both predator and prey, forward facing eyes as opposed to eyes on the sides of our head provides overlapping fields if vision which gives us better depth perception but smaller field of view this is a trait commonly associated with predators. But our teeth are more akin to prey animals because most are flat, bone structure is more if a predators nature, but digestive tract more if a prey characteristic
Academics didn't like H.G. Wells original image of aliens as creepy squid things from _War of the Worlds_ so they latched on to his design in _Man from Year Million,_ and from there the image of the Grey Alien, informing all of modern science fiction, was born?
I like this.
Academics ruin everything
HG wells had the right idea with his aliens
What about parallell evolution? That some traits are simply so useful that they become prevalent in nature (Earth-like nature or so-called garden worlds to use a Mass Effect term) more often than not?
Yea and we have many examples of parallel evolution on earth. Flight evolved independently 3 different times (Bugs, Birds, Pteradons, plus birds and pteradons evolved beaks independently) not to mention at first glance a cetacean looks just like a fish, but are actually mammals.
One of the biggest examples is in Placental and Marsupial mammals.
placental sabre-toothed cats (Machairodontinae) and the South American marsupial sabre-tooth (Thylacosmilus) are completely different species but are both very similar.
@@ASlickNamedPimpback that's convergent evolution, such a complex evolution as ours wouldn't be possible for the most part on alien planets
@@jasonbourne1126 why wouldn’t it be possible?
@@ASlickNamedPimpback human evolution was very complex, stuff like eyes, and wings can occur in any bodyplan. we needed our ancestry, our path, etc to become to the way we are. If our ancestors had a different bodyplan it would have went differently.
@@jasonbourne1126 Yes but it can still happen.
An organism in the water with 4 fins can get up on land, and eventually evolve tetrapods.
Eyes are a very useful trait, I can see any alien planet with lots of light having predators hunt with eyes, and prey detect said predators with eyes. They’re just too useful. The only cases of eye-devolution is either when an organism gets trapped in a dark-environment (caves) or is too short lived or small to be able to use/develop them.
Unless on a low-gravity world, wings only really occur on small creatures. A tree-climbing omnivore would have no use for wings, it would be occupying a niche occupied by many competitive species.
Trees would also likely evolve, plants want sunlight and rainwater the most, so a tall plant with a large canopy and secure “trunk” would very easily evolve. It’s even happened on earth with fungi.
A species with eyes, dexterous paws to grasp “tree” branches, forward-facing eyes to judge branch distances when moving branch-to-branch may be driven out of their natural habitat and forced to live on the ground, slowly evolving to walk.
There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, and if habitable planets are 1 in a million, that’s still 400000 planets just in the neighborhood, and each planet has had (if we use the oldest fossil on earth as the start of all life in the galaxy, even though planets could’ve had life much longer) has had 3.5 billion years to evolve atleast one similar species.
B5 had the balls to try to break this mould at a fraction of the budget of Star Trek.
The common ancestor bit has become so overused in sci-fi now it's boring.
I wouldn't say the common ancestor would be boring if it isn't done right, or if there isn't a new twist on things.
and to think that nobody used "the convergent evolution trope yet", which would be much better as sci-fi goes, it is just sad.
"Live long and may the timey, whimy, force be with you." Ohhh, I so want to steal that. lol
god damnit Andromeda
News flash and spoiler the Angara are a genetically engineered species that can shock you or put a pulse out to damage sensitive electronics and can even communicate with it much like how a eel creates a electrical current. They absorb energy from sunlight though their skin and not getting sunlight is bad for them. The kett share similarities with both the Borg and Kobali they assimilate others dna forcefully and useful traits into their genome and make people into them the only difference is the person is alive rather than dead. The thing is that aliens often are bipedal is because its easier to use tools and technology the Elcor from Mass Effect are quadrupeds they have to have assistance in using tech and tools and wear cannons on their backs assisted by VIs when they go to war, I still don't know how one came to smoke a cigar? Who gave him the cigar put it in his mouth and lit it for him?
My face is tired.
Saying we got smart because we had to outsmart predators seems like a pretty weak point considered that the most sophisticated examples of intelligence on our planet occur among carnivores and omnivores.
Also, brains aren't really the best evolutionary investment for the short term. Sure they have long term gain but they may be just as likely to kill your species off. They require a lot of energy to operate especially intelligent ones like humans. For prey, other defense mechanisms work like having shelter, having enough numbers so a few dying doesn't affect you, and poison.
Well... we are omnivores. And our brain actually needed meat to grow. When our ancestors moved away from eating mostly leafes, roots and bark discovering burnt animals can be digested better and with utilizing fire to cook meat, we started to evolve into humans.
ruclips.net/video/G_hl804lSfc/видео.html - When Humans Were Prey, PBS Eons
Humans were definitely prey. They may also have been predators at the same time, as food webs can have many layers.
Limi V Oh my god I kept wanting to mention this video but didn’t know where to put my comment! I just watched it the other day and the fact that people seem to think we weren’t prey is quite interesting. Like a lion could easily take us down even today the only reason we’re not prey anymore is because of our tools. A bear is like what twice the size of an average man? How could we not have been prey at one point? We were only recently at the top of the food chain when taking all of human history into account.
Quantum level predetermination: All life everywhere has the same base template and options. any differences are because of evolution(adaptation to environment)
In the movie K-PAX, he asked a question: Why is a bubble a bubble? Because it's the most energy efficient form
Star Trek did Ancient Aliens before it was "cool"
Doc Smith (Lensman) did it first.
@Cryer24597 Star Trek's explanation was way better.
@Cryer24597 It's explained in the ST:TNG episode "The Race".
Intentional or unintentional Panspermia did it first, dating back to the 1830’s.
Erik von Danniken put out ‘Chariots of the Gods?’, the basis of the “Ancient Alien Hypothesis” in 1968 in West Germany.
While TOS did start earlier, first airing in 1966, the TNG episode explaining the humanoid form aired in 1993, 25 years after von Danniken’s book was published.
Mass Effect's first book actually had a section where's races of the galaxy tried to come up with theories why nearly all of them were humanoid in appearence. Apparently the most well accepted theory is that the form has many natural advantages over other ones. Basically the prey/evolution theory.
One of my favorite explanations of this is from the uplift trilogy by David Brin. The long and short of it is that life that is too dis-similar (e.g. oxygen breathers and hydrogen breathers) just refuse to make contact with each other except in carefully controlled situations and go to great lengths to keep that from happening.
AFAIK the oxygen-breathers simply can't understand the hydrogen-breathers, and vice versa, correct? The primary difference is the different mentality caused by the different environments we evolved in. Apart from that, the prevalence of humanoid oxygen-breathers is because the first race was humanoid, so the races it uplifted became humanoid, and so forth.
"God...damnit Andromeda" Best line ever, heading to subscribe button right now!
About the whole needing to be smart to survive predators. It also works vise versa, predators need to be smart to hunt prey. That is why cats, and dolphins are so smart. We were prey, but then became predators, both helped in the development of our intelligence.
I think Mormonism would actually provide a pretty good explanation. To simplify, in Mormonism, God is an alien from another planet who ascended to God hood, and so got to make his own planet. And pretty much, when playing spore, God decided to make the aliens look like him because that’s the way he likes it.
I think an explanation like this would be an interesting way of explaining why so many aliens could be humanoid, as well as having only a handful of other templates, such as squid like aliens or centaur-esque aliens. Or you can explain that the first lifeforms to attain God hood created all sapient life afterwords, and each subsequent God designed aliens in their image because they like creatures that look like them. There’s also tons of potential’s for jokes, like having a planet that’s dominated by anthropomorphic animals explicitly because the God of that particular planet was a furry.
Because like all those shows tell of, we (Mankind) have an obsession with ourselves and creating our self image in a form that we imagine could one day be us of one day was us; and we do it to also immortalize the Human form into the infinite abyss of all space and time by putting it onto the web and etc.; we cannot except the fact that one day we will be no more, so all of us (whether people will admit it or not) want to be remembered, and we hope that it is in a good light; this drives us to make positive "forms" of ourselves to forever live on, at least in our minds, hearts, and technology.
Which, is why we have so many people in shows and movies trying to become immortal or make their minds into something immortal like technology...
Its personification to an extreme.
pretty sure the reason is just makeup and effects.
lol aaah I go with Pleep Plop. You might be right in generell that humans are that way and people who choose to
work in showbusiness maybe more. But thats far from the topic.
This is a pretty fun philosophical explanation.
"God...dammit, Andromeda!"
Speaker for a million souls despondant at what EA and Bioware created.
Yo, just stumbled on this channel, and while I like the idea, and most of the content, I disagree with your starting premise in the video - well, not so much disagree, as simply I am aware of the fact that it is simply incorrect - namely, the idea that "humans evolved from prey" is completely missing reality by a thousand miles.
Nowhere in history of human evolution since the oldest known ancestor mammals were human prey animals, unless you would decide that ALL animals that aren't predators are prey - which is stupid.
Primates, including humans are descendants of a tiny scavenger possum creature that was a scavenger, not a herbivore, and almost all primates alive now or extinct are scavengers. Only a couple like for example silverback gorillas are herbivores, most, humans included, are omnivores.
Humans did not evolve front eyes to "see predators easier", we evolved them to see better in 3d to spot minute details easier. We didn't evolve to walk on hind legs only to see predators faster either - it is a giant hindrance to avoiding predators in fact since not only WE are easier to spot, we also can't run so fast to escape. It is great for climbing and traversing long distances though.
And finally, we didn't become a successful species because we "outsmarted" predators, we became a successful species because we lost fur. Most mammals regulate heat through mouth and ears only, we regulate heat through sweating - ergo we can stay active longer and tire slower than any other mammal (to scale for size of course), and that is why we could traverse furthest in search for food - be it dead animals, or berries, roots, and all that. Eventually humans figured out that their tracking set up of front eyes and hind legs can work great to chase animals. Animals can run faster, but they also tire exponentially faster, therefore, with a group tracking the marks the animal left it is possible to chase ANY animal down, including predators (I recommend finding footage of chimps fending off big cats for reference as to how).
With that basic communication and simple tool use also developed, and with excess energy from protein gained from eating fresh meat, there was more room for brain growing larger and more complex, allowing for more successful persistence hunting, better coordination, better tools, and therefore more energy to develop brain. And from there it rolled exponentially. THAT is exactly how human civilisation was made, and that is why we look like we do. Thank you for (potential) reading, I give thumbs up to rest of the video.
ruclips.net/video/G_hl804lSfc/видео.html - When Humans Were Prey, PBS Eons
Humans were definitely prey. They may also have been predators at the same time, as food webs can have many layers.
@@limiv5272 Yea food chains are more nuanced than just predator versus prey... there's always a bigger fish
There's a scene in one of the Mass Effect games where a Salarian gets thrown a bachelor party by his shipmates, complete with a scantily clad Asari dancer. The three start arguing about wether Asari resemble Humans, Salarians or Turians, eventually leading to the conclusion by the human that the Asari use their innate neurochemical abilities to alter their appearance in the eyes of other species, so they will always look "like them".
You missed Babylon 5, which also had the progenitor race theory, but as an after though. Races evolved naturally, but then were messed with by the ancient races. It also suggested that evolution takes a pattern, and the humanoid configured works for larger animals. Medical Artists (yes there is such a thing) have tried to create six limed creatures, such as whose from the Princess of Mars books, and found it just does not work.
ironwarmonger Oh, they have, have they? I've often wondered about this. Except for insects (and except for evolving to avoid poisons), who haven't really evolved in millions of years, and some aquatic animals, almost everything else has four limbs. I wondered if it was just the most effecient, or if there was another reason. ;^)
Jim Benn Just think about what possible advantages two extra arms or legs would have ? Well... nothing really. Two additional legs would help us to stand more stable, but we can do that with only two of them just as good. Two additional arms would be practical to fullfill complex Engineering tasks, but there is only a tiny fraction of our race which regularily partakes in such actions, and for most of us these secondary arms would just be a waste of ressources.
Raven Knight See? That's what happens when you add genuine interest to half-assed thinking! (ME, ME! I mean me! 😃)
I completely agree with what you said. I was kinda wondering when I typed that, whether it was "independent evolution", or guided, or evolution based on what was already in the DNA. I was basically following through on all the options presented in the vid. 🙂
Some stuff is convenient by nature itself - living things need to have senses, means of movement, aquisition of energy and homeostasis. Especially if they evolve to be intelligent species. They need to have free limbs to manipulate objects, they need to have basic senses - like sight (especially if they are space faring race - you can't have astronomy without sight), they need to have means of communication as they need to build society and civilisation. That mean - some elements are must to exist to make species sapient and capable. So any alien race will have more or less equivalent of human body parts.
The bacteria that really run this universe have a particular taste in what they choose to ride on/in.
like it - but personally I prefer to be owned by mice than bacteria.
But as long as they treat me well I wont disobey,
hail bacteria
This comments section is pure gold.
Maybe it's like the same theory that we can't invent a new new color until we see it idea. A lot of our alien constructs in movies and games are still based on animals and plants we see on earth. Maybe hybridized or mutated a bit with artistic ideas, but it's still familiar. I'm just throwing the idea out there.
In the fiction I'm working on, I play with the "Meddling/Common progenitor" thing, where many worlds were actively altered and genetic material introduced. But I take it to the next step where there are beings that were not meddled with and evolved in radicly different environments producing radicly different body types. Jellyfish that live in the deep atmospheres of gas giants, low gravity Arthropods and all kinds of things. this produces friction between the "Seed" races, and the "Exotics" the twist, humans are not a Seed race, no evidence of any tampering in our planet's history or in our fossil records, we just evolved this way naturaly, and that throws a wrench in the whole "Seed races are inherently better" debate.
Sound awesome! I like classic Sci fi tropes with a twist.
If there's a planet where the aliens look like Major Kira, I'm booking a one-way trip.
You could do the Contact solution (it's pretty stupid) the aliens have shapeshifted into a form that we recognise so we don't freak out due to their appearance
I kind of really like this idea. Sort of remind me of Galaxy Quest.
The Japanese Crest of the Stars franchise has no aliens. The closest analogue, the Abh, were a genetically engineered slave race made by humans and sent out into the universe to explore it and find colonizable worlds. Contact was lost, and the Abh created their own civilization.
Will you do the Ferengi culture index?
I'm aiming to cover all Star Trek species eventually, even if it takes a while :)
TravistheHuman
fereggi = travestry
I feel like Halo is a happy medium, most are generally humanoid but still have lots of varying and unique designs. For example, you look at an Elite and I'm sure the first thing your mind gleans is 'yeah, that definitely ain't from Earth'.
It could be that it is just random and races just have really similar genetics due to the finite/ infinite genetic diversity creates humanoids.
So, basically, the convergent theory - meaning: it was coincidence or chance due to similar circumstances at one point or another...
Shadow in the short yes.
1:55 It was briefly mentioned in a conversation between Spock & Dr McCoy in the Original Series.
convergent evolution. eyes have independently evolved many times on earth. same for wings and legs. sometimes different starting points led the the same ending.
Reminds me of how on an aesthetic level, canines, felines, foxes and bears all strongly resemble each other, with only minor differences in detail between them. If one of them gained sentience and was like "why does everything look like a cat?" lol
As for Doctor Who, one theory Tom Baker's Doctor postulated in "Image of the Fandahl" was that the presence of a 12 million year old skull somehow influenced human evolution.
stephen hawkinns is actually a wizard and made sentient rabbits who can poop out random humanoids by the millions, he grew one on a lot of planets and they evolved to become all the sentient humanoids alive (i'am not high)
I just love this comment.
I'm writing a story where every planet with intelligent life was created by a god or gods specific to that solar system, and the bipedal design was created by one of the very first gods in the universe. Not many gods are truly imaginative, so most just copy that design with slight environmental alterations
In Sandman a young Sol admired the look of an Oan woman. He then may have shape humanity to look similar.
Im working on a story where all the aliens ARE actually humans that have just evolved to suit their colonized planets. Now they each believe themselves to be the pure strand and the others to be the aliens.
"Why is a soap bubble round?"
In order to become a space exploring race. You have to have some absolutes checked off.
(1) You need manipulating appendages for one. You're going 100% of nowhere without the ability to manipulate the world around you in a precise and delicate fashion.
(2)You're gonna need metallurgy as well. I've seen sci-fi that proposes growing organic solutions to space ships. Like in Starship Troopers. But I don't buy it. For Metallurgy you're gonna need fire. Or you'll be dependent on a few hot spots on your home world to do all your smelting from. Stunting growth to a stand still. Fire requires a reactive agent like Oxygen. All things considered I find it hard to believe we'd find almost anything except oxygen being used for this on alien worlds. Other chemical reactions that produce large amounts of heat might be too hard to find in a stable balanced ecosystem. Like how would you keep Florine from reacting with everything in sight and dissolving all life on contact? We're prolly dealing with Oxygen breathers all around with a couple outliers. Oxygen is just too good for burning things. These reactions happen in the open air. So we're looking for land dwellers as well.
(3) You'll have to be big. Relatively speaking. You have to be of at least a reasonable size for building and using advanced technology. No matter how smart you are. Computing technology will never be so small that a fist full of black ants would be able to use it. Even a hoard of them couldn't hope to build a radio tower. Human beings can lift about seventy pounds and move it around all day without hurting themselves. It would take a whole swarm of mice all day to move the same thing down the block once. Stone tools are likely to be the first for everyone. If you're too small. Useful stone tools would be too brittle if built for your scale. For the vast majority of history we only had man power to rely on. Even taking in to account lower gravity, there's inertia to worry about. Aliens astronauts are most likely going to be within 50% to 200% our size.
This is all just to get a technological civilization off the ground mind you. And of course there should be outliers all over the place that defy our expectations. But given just the three above. Big, land dwelling, oxygen atmosphere (if not breathing) and delicate appendages. Humanoid is actually a pretty good choice for form. There's some debate as to where the brain and sensory organs go. Or how many appendages you might have. But I'd wager most aliens are going to be a relatable size and have recognizable sensory organs analogous to our own. If we find a lot of tetra-pods in our journeys through the stars. I think it actually stands to reason that upright walking (or something like it) designs would be the norm for star explorers in that body design.
One theory goes that there is a finite number of ways you can arrange an organism and still have it be functional, refining this theory leads to the idea that of these functional organisms some of them will be more successful in more varied environments than the others, so the humanoid form is just the most easily adaptable form for life to take
Would've also been nice to talk about the role of the Ancients from Stargate.
I mean they are literally humans, fitting the "common ancestry" and "humans are alien colonists" simultaneously ^^;
Where did the first Doctor Who explanation come from? I assume either the Virgin or BBC books. I know the second one is from the Big Finish audio Zagreus.
1:00 "We have our heads at the top because that's where we keep our senses." Do you have any idea how stupid that sentence sounds?
1:05 "and our brain close behind them to quickly interpret those senses."
You obviously never heard of the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Look at the recurrent laryngeal nerve in a giraffe. The brain and nerves aren't where they are, simply because it looks convenient from the outside.
Yes, that's why i phrased it like that. :D And no, of the top of my head, can't say that I have. What's it do?
'Sorry. I apologize for my frustration but you have to know that your viewers are science enthusiasts. Wrong science is kind of offensive.
What's offensive about it? Have a beer and relax, jeez. The video doesn't have a scientific tone to it at all, it's laid back and jokey. The recurrent laryngeal nerve appears to be involved in signaling the larynx and respiratory systems. The brain is indeed situated very close to our sensing organs in order to receive information from them quickly. Every microsecond counts when it comes to natural selection. The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue...
Clone42 Evolution in the giraffe has caused the recurrent laryngeal nerve to elongate through it's entire neck. One end of the nerve is at the head and then goes all the way down to it's heart, around the aortic arch, then all the way back up the neck to the brain. It's a spectacular example of how evolution doesn't give a damn about what we humans think is convenient. Evolution works with whatever designs it has, even if the plan had an unusual start, evolution can't go back and clean up every design flaw. It can only move forward and make the best with what it has. The point being, how humans, giraffes, or any other animal is shaped has nothing to do with human ideas like convenience, or for that matter beauty. Once you start attributing human qualities to nature, you aren't very far away from also saying that something is the way it is because "God" meant it to be that way.
But that don't make his statement incorrect, most animals have their brain and main senors in their head to reduce information lag. This is a known thing and has nothing to do with the laryngeal nerve, seriously why did you even bring that up?
Our optic nerves are short for a reason and even then information lag is an issue restricting how quickly we respond to visual information if our eyes were on the tip of our fingers then this delay would be greater. Thus our eyes are in our skull because that is the best place for them to be.
Humanoid shaped is a "good enough" mixture of speed, strength, manual dexterity etc. Nature doesn't select for perfection, but just good enough.
A spine allows for upright posture with the necessary gravity resistance. Standing upright allows the use of the forelimbs for grasping food, and later tools. 2 arms and 2 legs gives decent balance without the muscular structure getting in the way of each other. To have more limbs with a spine requires more vertebrae, which means more muscles to stand upright, which means less gravity resistance and more energy needed to not starve to death. So a 4 armed creature with 8 legs will take more food than a 2 armed 2 legged creature of similar size. Ao if there was ever a food shortage over the billions of years it takes to go from single celled to complex , intelligent creature, nature would likely select the more energy efficient model.
It is also possible that there are aliens that aren't carbon based lifeforms. If so, how would we even recognise them as lifeforms? A rock could be an alien lifeforms for all we know, but since they have no recognisable hallmarks of what we consider to be required to be identified as a lifeforms, they are just inanimate rocks to us. I mean, how would we communicate? What common goals would we share even if we could?
So maybe the reason all aliens are humanoid in appearance, is that that they share enough similarities to each other that we both class each other as lifeforms.
We can really only work off what we have seen on our own planet, and as far as we can work out, our "good enough" shape is what allowed us to become the intelligent anxiety monkeys we are today.
All the characters in Star Wars are 'aliens'.Humanoid,yes,but not Human!
Wouldn't the mass effect explanation kind of fall into the category of meddling
Probably because thumbs are OP in evolutionary start up, being bipedal with thumbs allowed us to grasp objects and hurl them at our foes (id like to see squids do that with efficiency), maybe we are just the perfect amount of min maxing on evolutionary scale
>thumbs to grasp object
>prey brains to help us run and hide (gives us time to evolve without going extinct)
>ape curiosity to help us evolve (if we just spent our time running and hiding we would never have made proper tools and civilization)
>bipedal so we can maneuver better and to give us height to hurl things from (stones, pointy sticks etc)
>vulnerable bodies so we learn to make armor and cloth to protect our weak hides from wounds and different climates
>carrying our young within our bodies instead of eggs so we value them more (helps in passing on knowledge and creating familial bonds when you only have few offspring)
>pack animal mindset to help us create civilizations (many vs apex = many win)
Humans are pretty OP when you think about it, octopus and dolphins are pretty smart but they lack thumbs to build stuff with, in theory octopus could clumsily make some tools but we have yet to witness them do so, and neanderthals show what happens when you value endurance and strength over intelligence (sorry neanderbros, we didn't mean to make you go extinct)
In earth at least i think we don't have many land dwelling smart lifeforms is because humans tend to be afraid of everything that is different from them, maybe this was an evolutionary boon in the olden days too but even today you can see the negative remnants of that inherent mindset of tribal affiliation + us and them mentality humans seem to share
In conclusion i think we drew the evolutionary lottery and min maxed the shit out of it to ensure our species survived to this day, stands to reason that the same happened with similar species in sci-fi universes, unless a species was born as apex predator that was smart enough to hunt down any smart prey they encountered to prevent the many vs apex situation, that could explain why species similar to zerg / xenomorph / tyranid etc like creatures were able to exist without being eventually hunted down by tool users
Almost all aliens are humanoid because it gives The Captain something to toss into bed and not be too weird.
Because Dabgornites are not members of the Screen Actors Guild.
You got the prey/predator stuff at the beginning mostly backwards.
Answer to the titular question: due to the limitations of makeup /end of video
Not sure it goes into adding anything further lore wise to this conversation, but I do find it interesting to note how the earliest sci-fi tended to have so much more inhumanoid aliens, going back to the first being War of the Worlds which were extremely different even within our own solar system. Of course it didn't take too long for fiction to start exploring more humanoid creatures once the genre really picked up steam but it does seem like it went through a phase of going either almost entirely human or a jelatenous mass with basically no inbetween, and even now aliens that really push away from human appearance are more the exception escpecially as far as actual characters.
And then theres halo lol
You lost me at "humans evolved a vertical posture to spot predators"; this is bunk. If it were really the case, humans wouldn't be the only mammalian species to become completely bipedal.
It's more likely that proto-humans managed to evolve in such a way due to wading, diving and swimming. Add to that the advancement in tool use that made hands more specialized.
So, I was sitting there with my friends last night, watching Doctor Who (s5 to be exact) and my friend commented on Amy trying to flirt with Doctor something like: "Oh come on! You probaply have more similarities in your genome with a pig than with him!" On which my other friend answered this:"Timelords are probably future evolution of the human race". The funny thing is that both me and my friend almost at the same time said: "Timelords are an older race than humans". lol, good to be a nerd.
The Lord Of Watermelons. well.....with time travel being a thing "older" may mean something different.
They had been a pretty old race even before inventing time travelling tech.
I saw a Star Trek panel once where a question like this was asked and Marina Sirtis said (probably paraphrasing slightly), "As soon as we start getting non-humanoid actors auditioning for these parts, you'll probably start seeing more non-humanoid aliens in Star Trek."
cuz God gave us something to look forward to when we finally get out there
Hahahaha I absolutely love this comment! And thank you God!
My guess before I watch the clip:
money!
But it also has other reason: for legs is the minimum requirement for a stable position (like a table) especially if you want to be mobile. Three might work, but not well enough, und nature seems to work in "mirroring" (four, six, eight limbs etc. pp.).
More then four limbs often require a harder shells and or more bones and leads to exoskeleton which reduce the maximum size (due to weights issues). On certain planets that might be less an issue, but four is the best compromise in terms of stability, mobility and weight. If these limbs become legs, arms, wings or fins is secondary. The tails is an extension of the spine not a 5th limb.
Furthermore, a species will only become advanced, if they can use at least two limbs as hands. So the upright walk is imho a necessity in the evolution (at least for the most) intelligent species. And with four limbs at the beginning we will end up with the "humanoid" shape.
So it is not that unrealistic, that the most look like human in shape. Having lungs, our kind of eyes, or the size comparable to ours is a different matter more related to budget issues.
Edit:
The BBC series "The future is wild" suggests that Squibs could become the next intelligent species on Earth. But they have eight limbs and thus they have developed in the sea (weight issue) and have no skeleton (again: the weight issue) and thus their size is rather limited on land. Without a spine, the upright walk and a supporting skeleton, it could be next to impossible to lift heavy weights as needed to build a wall. Maybe they figure out something lese: tools.
ruclips.net/video/zntV3G0Km3k/видео.html
btw: the live span of an octopus is around two years. That is also a huge challenge to become an intelligent species.
Ummmm...let's see, what could lead to this...Oh! Captain Jack Harkness?
In the Original Battlestar Galactica (1978) It was reveal in the series that we Earthlings are the 13th Colony of Humans and during the show the Galactica crew encounter ancient Beings called The Beings of Light. Space:1999 they took encounter several old races,etc.. great video keep up the great work.
K-PAX: "Why is a soap-bubble round?"
I was always a fan of Stragate's explanation that these "aliens" are mostly humans which were transplanted from earth to other worlds for use as slaves.
I thought the answer was just going to be one word:
Budget
Enjoyed watching most of your alien culture vids, hope to see more from other sources too. :)
Well anyway, any intelligent life would be multicellular and carbon-based, most likely using oxygen as an oxidizer to power itself
Why?
@@tesmith47 because it's the most stable. Analogous to how nuclear decay functions.
You forgot the actual, real-life scientific theory for why alien life could potentially look like us:
Because maybe an Earth-like biosphere is the only kind of biosphere that can produce what we would recognize as intelligent, sapient life, and maybe humanoid life is the only kind of life that can attain sapience in that kind of biosphere.
You just copied word for word in one segment a government report from Majestic 12 yet tried to sound as if it were your own deduction. Unsubscribed for not even bothering to put something into your own words.
ben Smith. get over your self.
Which part?
Cats created humanoids as a slave labor force to open their canned food and build little cat habitats. In the beginning humanoids knew this and revered the cats as gods but over time the cats got tired of all that revering so they gradually took on the roll they hold today. This has happened on planets through-out the universe. Also, dogs were originally created to be pets for the cats.
It's easy AND CHEAP!
It is because we don't have enough imagination to create a non humanoid race which is not a blob.
Because it is easier and less expensive to make-up live humans and animate human shaped characters. Hollywood is essentially lazy.
Scott's Wood. you are ignoring the mentioned anthropomorphic effect, its significantly harder to get empathy from an audience when the subject is significantly un human.
and even thats not down to lazyness strictly speaking so much as pragmatism. it can and has been done in all mediums but the story invariably becomes about discovering the ability to empathise with something different or failing to discover it. thats a problem when you want to focus your story on something else and simply have the audience accept that the alien(s) in the story as characters rather than others.
In SWTOR, alot of the Alien Races are the creation of a Rakata Super Computer that was found on Belsavis, but thats not exactly cannon, even to legends continuity.
0:12 Its easy yes. The other reason is. We have never met or known of a true alien. So we have nothing to draw on truthfully. Id argue when we do discover aliens. They will be unlike anything we have imagined, making them...alien.
What about the Blues from Perry Rhodan?
Would you consider them humanoid? (Serious question. They conform to the body plan of a head with sensorium on top of a symmetric body, but with their four eyes evenly spaced all around their bowl-shaped head on a thin stem or stalk that also contains their voice-mouth.)
For Doctor Who, you have to keep in mind that it isn't just the Milky Way. The entire show is built around giving the characters access to literally the entirety of the universe. They can meet any form of life that has ever existed, so it is merely due to random chance that some of the races look similar, it's just that the overall pool of intelligent species to draw from is so mind-bogglingly big that these one-in-a-trillion coincidences are entirely possible and even, to an extent, common. As for humans looking Time-Lord, the Doctor and Susan simply chose a Timelord-esque race to hide amongst, leading to 'An Unearthly Child' and to the Doctor taking up his role as defender of Earth.
Did enjoy the video, and thanks for your content. The reason why most aliens look humanoid is that when the casting call is made, only humans apply for the roles.
Up until recently: the Vorlons and Shadows of B5, the pods from Arrival, the creature from “The Thing” (not the original carrot-creature, that was just James Arness in a suit.)
But even at that, science fiction, Doc Smith, Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein all have human or human-like creatures.
I’ve always supported the “convergent evolution” argument, personally. Like you mentioned at the start of the video, species facing similar situations would evolve on similar lines. We’ve actually seen this happen on Earth with Cacti and Succulents being indistinguishable from one-another unless you know what you’re looking for, despite their evolution on different continents.
I always thought the 'originators' in the TNG looked amazingly a lot like the dominion. Which, I think would have some huge impacts if it was confirmed that perhaps they were precursors or some sort..
I always liked the idea of an ancient precursor civilization that dabbled in genetic manipulation, for the reason.
“It takes one to know one” theory. We just don’t recognize other life if it’s not like us.
Many of our features just make sense. Legs are better than slithering because you can step over obstacles and small dangers. Hands are reasonably efficient and dexterous manipulators - which are critical to the development of technology. Arms to extend those hands allow reach and more dexterity. Arms higher up on our forms mean they don't interfere with motility. Keeping the senses we depend on most heavily near the brain reduces sensory lag. Putting our eyes and ears on a swiveling neck allow us to expand the scope of what we can witness.
I could see a species that relied less on sight, more on sound or smell looking more different, but I don't see a completely blind species making the leap to complex technology.