Just a few days ago, on 28 January, journalist and researcher Steve LeVine posted a very interesting essay on science magazine OneZero in which he explains why extraterrestrial lifeforms could actually resemble humans.

According to Mr LeVine, life on Earth could give us some clues to how life on other planets (more specifically, Earth-like planets) might develop. And he mentions a very special feature: plate tectonics. “Scientists say that any planet hosting intelligent life as we know it is likely to possess a feature of Earth’s that is as important as it is underappreciated: plate tectonics, the capricious machinery beneath our feet that makes the planet livable and at times hellish”, he wrote. “The history and geopolitics on any planet with technological aliens will be shaped by these same forces, since intelligent life as we know it will require plate tectonics. Volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis will destroy their cities and whole civilizations, and will at turns empower other population centers, drive mass migrations, and create the same kind of political frictions we have seen on Earth when people of different places collide”, he added.

On the other hand, intelligent extraterrestrial life should be able to find and use energy sources to sustain societies. “Life and power will pivot on the development and possession of energy sources, and possibly reach a scale that John D. Rockefeller never imagined”, the researcher claimed. “In a seminal paper in 1964, a Soviet astrophysicist named Nikolai Kardashev proposed a standard ranking of technological civilizations in space. His yardstick: a society’s ability to marshal energy”, he expressed.

“Scientists draw some portraits of the probable shape of an alien society. Geoffrey West, of the Santa Fe Institute, says intelligent alien beings would congregate in a place that would strike us as a city — ‘something that had structure and a built quality’. Nicholas Wright, the neuroscientist, said these beings would have a policing mechanism, although not necessarily a police force as we know it, because order is one of the main features of life”, Mr LeVine commented. “And [Adam] Frank said they would have done what they could to mitigate the impact of natural disasters like earthquakes. Jack Goldstone, a professor at George Mason University, suggested that if the city were part of an intelligent agrarian society on its possible way to technological status, the historical cycle there would be somewhat predictable”, he continued.

Draw your own conclusions…

For more information: https://onezero.medium.com/alien-nations-why-life-on-other-planets-will-resemble-ours-15fb4ede6fe7