188 | Arik Kershenbaum on What Aliens Will Be Like

188 | Arik Kershenbaum on What Aliens Will Be Like

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.

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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.


Jaksot(416)

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174 | Tai-Danae Bradley on Algebra, Topology, Language, and Entropy

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AMA | November 2021

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Welcome to the November 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of qu...

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173 | Sylvia Earle on the Oceans, the Planet, and People

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172 | David Goyer on Televising the Fall of the Galactic Empire

172 | David Goyer on Televising the Fall of the Galactic Empire

Science and storytelling have a long and tumultuous relationship. Scientists sometimes want stories to be just an advertisement for how awesome science is; storytellers sometimes want to use science f...

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171 | Christopher Mims on Our Interconnected Industrial Ecology

171 | Christopher Mims on Our Interconnected Industrial Ecology

As the holidays approach, we are being reminded of the fragility of the global supply chain. But at the same time, the supply chain itself is a truly impressive and fascinating structure, made as it i...

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170 | Priya Natarajan on Galaxies, Black Holes, and Cosmic Anomalies

170 | Priya Natarajan on Galaxies, Black Holes, and Cosmic Anomalies

There is so much we don't know about our universe. But our curiosity about the unknown shouldn't blind us to the incredible progress we have made in cosmology over the last century. We know the univer...

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169 | C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Art, Values, and Agency

169 | C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Art, Values, and Agency

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AMA | October 2021

AMA | October 2021

Welcome to the October 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of que...

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