# Can we make any educated guesses on what an Alien life form would look like? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 25, 2007, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980 "2007-10-25T16:15:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980/61 "2007-11-02T11:15:56Z")
[QUOTE=Blake] You have still refused to provide the references I requested, so I claim victory on this one. You have just been making shit up. Just for amusement I will point out the more ridciulous flaws in your last post. [/quote] Go you! > [@](#): > > How silly. > Human intelilgence is the result of genetics, not effort. It doesn’t requirere free time for a species to evove a trait. Environment influences genetics and in the case of intelligence, it isn’t an automatic advantage like bigger fangs are, you need to work at it. Surely you can recall times in high school when you found yourself about to be pummeled by the school bully and realized at that moment the fact that you were smarter than him wasn’t going to help at this point in time? > [@](#): > > That is precislely what I just said several times: our ability to exploit high energy density foods is what enable sus to spend so little time foraging. It ahs nothing whatsoever to do with your bullshit claim that humans have alow metabolic rate. Sigh. I said that I phrased it poorly, you however, seem to have latched on to the idea that I was verging on saying something else. Now, let’s look at how this scenerio plays out if I continue with it. 1.) I stick to my guns about the matter, you continue to chase me around with a Bible calling me a liar, a thief and a coward. 2.) I say that I meant “low” compared to a humming bird, you will either accuse me of lying or berate me for comparing a primate species to a non-primate species. 3.) I say that I meant “low” compared to a sloth, and you will: [ul] [li]Accuse me of lying, or[/li][li]Berate me for comparing a non-primate species to a primate species, or[/li][li]Point out that this is wrong and pat yourself on the back for being cleverer than I am.[/ul][/li] This is really like when Ford Prefect and Arthur have the discussion about the Garden of Eden and Ford says that when you’re dealing with someone who enjoys putting bricks under a hat, you’re screwed no matter what you do, so the best thing to do is not deal with that person. It seems to me, that aside from my botched phrasing of my statement, we’re really on the same page of the matter, but I doubt that you’d agree, and I really don’t have the time to hash this out until you see that I’m not trying to throw evolutionary theory out the window here. > [@](#): > > That is in fact exactly what he said. I quote: " If intelligence could evolve in a reptile, we would have seen examples of it." He said outright that reptiles can not evolveinto an intelligent species becaus eif they oculd have we woudl have seen it. > > So now he is also being dishonest about what he has posted. I could be really snarky here and ask why the sudden switch to a third person and inquire if that did not mean that you were having someone else write this for you, but that’s a cheap debating tactic and I’m not really fond of those. I will plead guilty again to not being clear in my phrasing. What I mean was, “If a reptile could evolve intelligence and remain a reptile, we would see examples of it.” AFAIK, reptiles, despite being on this planet longer than we have, are still considered to be pretty dim. > [@](#): > > Sigh. No. What I said is an indisputable fact: average intelligence for all species increases over time and the inteligence of the most intelligent species incraese sover time. The average intelligence of animal life right now is much higher than it was in the Triassic and them ost intelligent specie sis much more inteligent. Ditto when comparing the Triassic and the Carboniferous, or the Carboniferous and the Cambrian. > > Get it? Oh, I got it. The increase intelligence is **not** a goal of evolution, merely a “side effect” as it were. It “just happens” provided conditions are right (if conditions aren’t right, then the species goes extinct). At some point, however, greater intelligence becomes such an evolutionary advantage that it becomes the driving force in evolutionary change, rather than things like physical prowess or the best tail feather display. > [@](#): > > Nothing is ever a fricken’ certainty in science. True, but some things are of such a low probability as to not be bothered with. For example, it’s entirely possible that aliens will land, revive Marilyn Monroe and send her to my place to have sex with me today. The actual possibility of that happening, however, is pretty much zero. > [@](#): > > The point is that your entire bizarre belief flies int he face of the facts. We have countless examples that run counter tot what you claim, every general case suggests that you are wrong, you are clearly grossly ignorant of evolutionary biolgy, and you have no evidence at all that suggests you might be right. Sigh, as I said, I phrased things poorly. I am not, in any way, trying to rewrite evolutionary biology. Whenever I have the time to fully hash the idea out, if it does **not** fit the established facts of evolutionary biology, I will toss it out. Believe that or not, I don’t care. > [@](#): > > Somehow I doubt you are winning over many converts here Eh, I don’t really care if I do or not. > [@](#): > > Bullshit. Insults are againt the rule so fthis forum. Had I insulted you I can assue you that we woudl have a moderator’s warning. Assuming, of course, a mod had read the posts in question. > [@](#): > > So once agian you are being blatantly and provably dishonest. Why don’t you just call me a “liar”? Why bother with the oblique phrasing? Frankly, you can call me anything you want it doesn’t matter to me. > [@](#): > > :rolleyes: > > He has time to repeat the same garbage ad nauseum fr a week solid, but when asked for references he suddnely has no time. > > Sure, sure Ted. Let’s see here, you’ve also said that you don’t have much time, and you’ve also said that if I didn’t provide cites to your satisfaction in my last post you were done with me and yet here you are. I really shouldn’t be spending the time that I am on this, and I certainly _don’t_ have the time to go around digging up cites and lord knows that can turn into a “game” where one of us makes a claim which is a commonly recognized fact (like the sky being blue) and the other one cry “Cite!” I think I speak for both of us when I say I have more important things to do than that. > [@](#): > > So WTF is your point? How doe sthis in any way support your ludicrous claim that only one species heas ever evolved sentience? Okay, I plead guilty to being so imprecise in my thinking as to lump humans and neanderthals into the same broad general species category. > [@](#): > > WTF? How can you not understand the difference between energy dense foods and an energy dense environment? Do you honestly not understand that that the African savannahs were and are no more energy dense for humans than for the millions of other species that lived there before we existed and still live there today? Humans can eat an energy rich diet in that environment because of their behaviour, not because the fricken’ envrionemnt became magically energy dense as soon as human seveolved. > > Sheesh. You know, my memory on the theory is a bit fuzzy at the moment as to what all happened. Did we start moving out on to the savannah after our brains began to grow or before? I don’t remember. In either case, would you not agree that there was a bit of a feedback loop in that as we took advantage of energy dense food because of our developing brains, this enabled our brains to develop more, so we were then able to make better use of energy dense food, thus allowing our brains to grow even larger? > [@](#): > > And I have pointed out why this has no basis whatsoever, flies in the face of the the known facts, and has been dreamed up by a man grossly ignorant of the subject. “Known facts”? Unless I miss my guess, the only way it can be a “known fact” that human-like intelligence can exist in a non-bipedal species would be for us to encounter one. AFAIK, that hasn’t happened yet. > [@](#): > > You can repeat it all you like, it will still be ignorant nonsense even after you’ve repeated it a dozen more times. So you’re saying that it _has_ been proven? Great! When and where? > [@](#): > > :rolleyes: > > This is the strength of his position. A blatant arguemnt from ignorance. So if I said to you I’d just created warp drive, you’d be completely wrong in asking me to prove it? :dubious: > [@](#): > > Dude I think you justlost all credibilty on these boards. I didn’t know I had any. > [@](#): > > No, it woudl only require that you provide the references I requested for those ridiculous claims that you made. > > Seriously, if humans had evolved from slime molds then you woudl be able to find a cite establishing thatin about 30 seconds using Google. Okay, let’s see here, I mentioned a cite earlier which you failed to acknowledge (and let me quote it, just so we’re clear on eveything) > [@me](#): > > My source for this is an essay by Tom Rainbow in a mid-80s issue of _Issac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine_, sorry I don’t have the issue any more, so I could scan and post it, but I’ve got a feeling you wouldn’t care anyway. and you have cited > [@Blake](#): > > Read “Wonderful Life” by S. J. Goul, or “Science of Discworld”. The answer is almost certainly “happenstance”. Someone had to do it first, it happened to be our ancestors. Off-line sources, and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t consider _Science of Discworld_ to be any more valid than the fanwankery excuse filled _The Physics of Star Trek_, which does a lot of handwaving backed up by phrases like “while current theory says that this is impossible, it _may_ turn out that it’s possible due to some as yet undiscovered principle” and now you want an on-line source? Meh. IAC, I’ll plead guilty to being stupid on that point. I really like Douglas Adams, and he certainly was an intelligent person and interested in things like the environment, biology, etc., but he’s no evolutionary biologist AFAIK, so just because he said that a slime mold could evolve intelligence **doesn’t** mean that one can. > [@](#): > > :rolleyes: > > You really are going to resposnible for a rolleyes smiley shortage, you know that. > > This forum is for debates, not for posting baseless and ignorant material on subjects that you are totally ignorant of and that you feel are of absolutely no import. So, you’re telling me that you’ve never posted something in GD that you thought would pretty much go unnoticed? Or that if it _did_ get noticed it’d either be quickly dismissed or given mild acknowledgement? Because that’s really what I figured would happen, not that someone would latch on to every single word I posted and begin parsing them as if their very life depended upon finding a flaw in what I said. > [@](#): > > I suggest you try MPSIMS next time, you might not look as bad there. When you make ridiculous and ignorant statements in this forum you are expected to be able to back it up with facts, knowledge or argument or argument. You can cleraly provide none of those. Yeah, and when you’re a mod, I’ll do just that. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980/62 "2007-11-02T13:17:46Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] quite frankly, I wouldn’t consider _Science of Discworld_ to be any more valid than the fanwankery excuse filled _The Physics of Star Trek_, which does a lot of handwaving backed up by phrases like “while current theory says that this is impossible, it _may_ turn out that it’s possible due to some as yet undiscovered principle” [/QUOTE] You have no idea who [Ian Stewart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stewart_%28mathematician%29) and [Jack Cohen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cohen_%28scientist%29) are, do you? Or what \*[The Science of Discworld](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Discworld) \* is about, either. Comparing it to a Physics of Star Trek book is…ignorant. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980/63 "2007-11-02T13:25:00Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] You have no idea who [Ian Stewart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stewart_%28mathematician%29) and [Jack Cohen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cohen_%28scientist%29) are, do you? Or what \*[The Science of Discworld](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Discworld) \* is about, either. Comparing it to a Physics of Star Trek book is…ignorant. [/QUOTE] Even though [_The Physics of Star Trek_ book has an introduction by Stephen Hawking?](http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780465002047&itm=1) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980/64 "2007-11-02T13:44:50Z")
Who cares who wrote the introduction - it’s a total non-sequitur. You’d have been better off pointing to the CV of Krauss, the author. Which was beside my point, anyway - you clearly thought that _TSoD_ was about scientific explanations for the stuff in Pratchett’s books, similar to _TPoST_ - a “what if” scenario writ large. You were wrong. And the Discworld is Terry Pratchett, not Douglas Adams, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980/65 "2007-11-02T16:10:50Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] Who cares who wrote the introduction - it’s a total non-sequitur. [/quote] So you’re saying that Hawking would just write the introduction for _anything_ with _Star Trek_ in the title? While I don’t know Hawking personally, I’d be willing to bet that _isn’t_ the case. If it _is_ the case, then I think I’ll write a slash fic with Bones and Spock doing the nasty and get him to write the intro to it just for shits and giggles. > [@](#): > > You’d have been better off pointing to the CV of Krauss, the author. Which was originally what I was going for, but then I noticed that Hawking wrote the intro and figured I’d point that out. > [@](#): > > Which was beside my point, anyway - you clearly thought that _TSoD_ was about scientific explanations for the stuff in Pratchett’s books, similar to _TPoST_ - a “what if” scenario writ large. You were wrong. Yeah, so? [_The Cartoon Guide to Physics_ by Larry Gonick](http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Physics-Larry-Gonick/dp/0062731009) tackles physics in a manner similar to how your Wiki link describes _TSoD_, but if I was wanting someone to take me seriously in an argument, I wouldn’t cite it as a source. > [@](#): > > And the Discworld is Terry Pratchett, not Douglas Adams, BTW. No kiddin’. Show me where I credited it to Adams. **Blake** brought up both Douglas Adams _and_ Pratchett, if you’ll notice. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980/66 "2007-11-02T17:46:19Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] So you’re saying that Hawking would just write the introduction for _anything_ with _Star Trek_ in the title? [/QUOTE] No, I’m saying that who writes the intro for a book has squat to do with the content. You came back to me referencing Cohen and Stewart with a reference to Hawking - when the former are the co-authors, and Hawking just wrote a blurb? And yes, Hawking is a massive SF fan, I wouldn’t be surprised. [QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Which was originally what I was going for, but then I noticed that Hawking wrote the intro and figured I’d point that out. [/QUOTE] You were going for _Argument from (Higher) Authority_? Brave man. [QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Yeah, so? [_The Cartoon Guide to Physics_ by Larry Gonick](http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Physics-Larry-Gonick/dp/0062731009) tackles physics in a manner similar to how your Wiki link describes _TSoD_, but if I was wanting someone to take me seriously in an argument, I wouldn’t cite it as a source. [/QUOTE] Why not? Anyway, what you said was (my bolding): > [@](#): > > I wouldn’t consider Science of Discworld to be any more valid than the **fanwankery** excuse filled The Physics of Star Trek, which does a lot of **handwaving** backed up by phrases like “while current theory says that this is impossible, it may turn out that it’s possible due to some as yet undiscovered principle” which makes it quite clear you had no clue what _SoTD_ was about. [QUOTE=Tuckerfan] No kiddin’. Show me where I credited it to Adams. **Blake** brought up both Douglas Adams _and_ Pratchett, if you’ll notice. [/QUOTE] Sorry, I must have missed that bit. All I had was the quote by you about _SoTD_ and a mention of Adams without a mention of Pratchett, so I did 1+1 and got 3, it seems. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980/67 "2007-11-02T18:02:27Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] No, I’m saying that who writes the intro for a book has squat to do with the content. You came back to me referencing Cohen and Stewart with a reference to Hawking - when the former are the co-authors, and Hawking just wrote a blurb? And yes, Hawking is a massive SF fan, I wouldn’t be surprised. [/quote] Should I point out that you’re implying a cripple would allow his name to be attached to just anything or that one of the brightest scientific minds of our times would do so? Hmm, decisions, decisions. > [@](#): > > You were going for _Argument from (Higher) Authority_? Brave man. Flattery will get you nowhere. > [@](#): > > Why not? Anyway, what you said was (my bolding): > > which makes it quite clear you had no clue what _SoTD_ was about. Again, I don’t think that too many scientists would find fault with what Gronick puts in his books, but if I were trying to be taken seriously in a discussion I wouldn’t cite it as an authorative work. > [@](#): > > Sorry, I must have missed that bit. All I had was the quote by you about _SoTD_ and a mention of Adams without a mention of Pratchett, so I did 1+1 and got 3, it seems. Yup, you did, as **Blake** brought up both, I merely responded to his comments. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980/68 "2007-11-02T18:42:05Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Should I point out that you’re implying a cripple would allow his name to be attached to just anything or that one of the brightest scientific minds of our times would do so? Hmm, decisions, decisions. [/QUOTE] This would be the same guy who appeared twice in _The Simpsons_. I don’t think his senses of humour or geekery are crippled. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-make-any-educated-guesses-on-what-an-alien-life-form-would-look-like/423980.md?page=3)