Are We Going to Get the Same Results?

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Stephen j. Gould famously said that if you had started evolution again, back from the beginning, and let it go, there's kind of random fluctuations tat with something. So much of earth's history has been dependent on contingencies d ad and random chances and asteroid strikes. The idea that things will be exactly the same clearly isn't, right? But the question is, are we going to get some of the same processes in real life? And it seems the answer's got to be yes, right? We've got to have the same kindof solutions.

If extraterrestrial life is out there — not just microbial slime, but big, complex, macroscopic organisms — what will they be like? Movies have trained us to think that they won’t be that different at all; they’ll even drink and play music at the same cafes that humans frequent. A bit of imagination, however, makes us wonder whether they won’t be completely alien — we have zero data about what extraterrestrial biology could be like, so it makes sense to keep an open mind. Arik Kershenbaum argues for a judicious middle ground. He points to constraints from physics and chemistry, as well as the tendency of evolution to converge toward successful designs, as reasons to think that biologically complex aliens won’t be utterly different from us after all.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Arik Kershenbaum received his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology from the University of Haifa. He is currently College Lecturer and Director of Studies at Girton College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens — and Ourselves.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.