h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Right back in evolution, we started with just a brain, a heart and a spine. From that we evolved 2 eyes, 2 front limbs and 2 back limbs. So did everything else. For several reasons (I have listed a few below) this seems a very impractical system. But why are in most SF films and stories aliens also depicted with the same symmetrical shape with the head and sensory organs on top and the limbs underneath? Surely it is a very high improbability that on any other planet at any other time another life form evolved with exactly the same components?

Some improvements I think should be made would be:

(And you really have to shed all conventional thinking for this.)

Extra arms, but not dangling from the top - how about one nearer the ground? And every parent should have at least one per child. Preferably plus another one for the shopping.

Shoulders are a vital joint, the arms being used for so much, but they are badly protected and vulnerable, as well as being limited in their reach. Why do I have to twist myself about so much to reach behind me?

Why can't I see behind me - extra eyes please - in the back of the head, or better still, between the shoulder blades.

Better heat regulation, so there's no need for clothes

More fingers - If you pick up something you have the four fingers on the one side and the thumb on the other. That is often not enough.

For women - bigger hands - everything is designed to be just too big for a woman to pick up properly.

For men - testicles on the inside please.

More protection for stomachs.

Faster legs.

And if we really do only use a tiny part of our brains, well there's obviously room for improvement there, too. For example, being able to follow a phone call, a child's whining and the interesting report on the radio at the same time would be great.

Not to mention appendices and Coccyces which are much quoted unnecessaries.

And there must be a less cumbersome way of reproducing.

Does anyone have any other thoughts on this matter, or are you happy as you are. Don't tell me your back never hurts.

Do we really only use a part of our brains? There is no evidence for this. The original statement was made by Albert Einstein and was based on some flawed research at the time. All the evidence now shows that we do in fact use all of our brains.

Testicles are outside for a reason: the need a slightly lower temperature to operate than the rest of the body. This is why men with low sperm counts are told to wear loose fitting boxer shorts.

The body has a protective mechanism which will pull the testicles into the abdomen in the event of extreme danger.

How about, for women, eyes in the middle of their chest, so that they can maintain eye contact with men while talking to them?

I rather fancy being a marsupial - giving birth to a pea-sized baby, which I then keep in a pocket until it is big enough survive on its own. There is definately a design fault in the way human babies are so disproportionately large, but are still equally helpless once born.

I would definately re-design men so that their brains and
their 'thinking parts' are in the same place - it would save confusion.

As every (good) designer knows, it's all about trade-offs... for humans, intelligence comes before pretty much everything else, 'cause that's what we do best (allegedly )...

Which means that a fair few things have t' go so's we can have nice, big, efficient brains. Eyes in the back of the head would be nice... but you'd need a fair bit more processing power... which would mean less room for everything that has t' go in your head.

I'm not convinced that extra arms or fingers would be much use, though... I mean, they'd always be getting in the way...

I wouldn't be too surprised if intelligent life from other planets looked vaguely human (I'd be quite surprised if we found any, mind)... because I reckon we must be fairly close to the optimal design, if missing it by numerous minor details.

*shrug*

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Fleshy covering on the front of the shins, please. Also, teeth that can't be decayed by what we eat.

Yeah, one things that makes me curl my toes when watching sci-fi is how human the aliens are. Look at babylon 5, they´ve got an alien race that looks just like humans except they´re semi-bald and got spots on their head. Couldn´t they make it a bit realistic? But I suppose if you want to make an alien that´s 4 meters high and has 6 arms, it might be hard to find an actor who can fit the costume

But actually I think if we met an alien race that has technology, it might look humanoid. An alien animal could look like anything, but in order to get technology they might need to look like us. For example they would need something to move around on, and two legs is minimum if you want to keep balance. Then you need something to manipulate with, as with hands and arms. If they´re hunters, they would probably need to have their eyes high, to have a good view of the savannah. And they would need to keep all their senses close to the brain, in order to react fast. So all in all, they would probably have some resemblance to us.

It's true that most aliens in sci-fi movies are bipedal humanoids because it is very expensive to make them anything else. Perhaps this will change with further advances in computing and animation.

We now know our teeth decay because of bacteria that is passed on from parent to child by age 3. We could probably eliminate it in our generation if we put a lot of medical scientists to task, but there are forces aligned against such an effort. After all, what would all those dentists and dental assistants do if their pool of patients suddenly started drying up?

Also, I suspect that we use more of our brain that we know. Just because we don't know what something is doing, that doesn't mean it does nothing at all. Electrical impulses travel through every portion of our brain, implying that it is all there for a reason. One possibility is that much of our brain exists to store memories. You don't really need those memories, do you?

But if we're going to change humanity, could someone please adjust the male and female sex drives so we could "peak" at the same time? There's no reason I can tell why the two genders should be made so inherently incompatible.

Well, there´s the subconciousness, you don´t notice when that is on. So a part of the brain will be used for that, along with the memories. But the 90% is of course nothing but a myth.

Why do we get those germs when we are 3 years old? Is it because that´s the time were children are so cute everybody has to kiss them? And why on Earth is our immune system so ignorant of them? Personally I also think that dentists simply fix your teeth so they can last for some time, so they can keep up work. If they wanted to, they could help you so much more, but they wouldn´t earn on that. Like when people talk about how it is amazing we can go to the moon but not make a TV that can last. Well, we can make them last a hundred years, but the companies wouldn´t earn money on it. Actually scientists have done some research on the teeth-issue and come up with some bacterias. You flush your mouth once in a liquid containing them, and they outcompete the original ones. They´ve had good results with rats, but no human testing has been done yet. I find the thought of scientists brushing the teeth of rats rather amusing But a rat lives most of it´s live in a sewer or a landfill, it doesn´t really have to care about bad breath. But if we humans stopped brushing our teeths, wouldn´t that mean the end of social relations?

How about:?
kids are born with only one arm
you get the second arm on reaching puberty
when you get round to having kids, you get an extra arm (or two, even)

just a little thought.

I think we should start plotting to switch all newborn ones for genetically perfect clones, ones who all will look exactly the same.
then we would get rid of all eating-disorders and everything...

('m not a nazi, wishing to create the "stronger,better&improvedRace, just very tired... )

I didn't want to start a conversation like that. I had hope for some witty remarks - and got some.

I agree with Fragilis on her point about male vs female libidos .

Why do men always want sex at the least likely times

(after a strenuous effort - once we had just MOVED HOUSE!!!,
when the weather is very hot - yuk!,
when you wake up in the morning (I can't even bear anyone touching my hair till I've showered)
and worst cardinal sin of all - when you have just changed the sheets!!)

And as for memory using up too much brainspace - it would be nice if we could choose the memories we forgot and which we could keep.

I wonder how many times life begins each day on Earth. I mean, it didn't just happen once in the primordial goo by luck and then never again. No, lightning strikes goo every day. Life starts anew every day. We have to compete for control over our colonized matter with such varied adversaries that have evolved on much shorter time lines than our own, and likely some longer ones!

On the topic of screen depictions of extra-terrestrial life, my thoughts wander away from the "terrestrial" template. What kinds of life would evolve on a gaseous planet? Would it have feet in contemplation of solid ground? I think it would not be solid at all!

If I may close with an unfounded comment, I'll relate a tidbit I overheard at a party... The human body is possesed by an invisible 8-ounce creature that leaves when the carrier dies. This is measured on a scale at the moment of death.

"Did somebody fart?"

With regards to Trillians Childs' statement about men wanting sex at the most least likely times, the answer is ....most least likely for WHO???

Human babies are the size they are because of design compromise. Marsupials have that neat pouch arrangement where their babies continue to develop, which makes it a sort of external womb. Once the baby leaves that pouch, it's pretty much ready to fend for itself. The young of prey animals (deer, horses, cattle, etc.) are able to run with the herd within a short time of being born, so they are also pretty much ready to fend for themselves (aside from needing mothers milk for a while). In fact, the young of most mammals develop faster than humans do, and reach sexual maturity earlier, too. *But* if human babies were to be as physically mature at birth as other animal babies are, then the babies couldn't be born until they were the size of a 5 or 6 year old. This, off course, is impossible. It would put too much strain on the mother's body, for a start. So human babies are born small and helpless and need constant care and attention for a few years. Tough, but there it is.

As for the arrangements of our bodies, here's one I heard some time ago:

A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer and a civil engineer were debating God. The mechanical engineer said, 'Think about the human skeletal structure. It's so well designed, with the linkages of muscles and the easy movement of the joints, that God must be a mechanical engineer.' The electrical engineer said, 'Think about the brain and the nervous system. Such complex connections and inter-communication. God must be an electrical engineer.' Then they both turned to the civil engineer and said, 'I suppose you think he's a civil engineer.' The civil engineer replied, 'Of course. Who else would put a major recreational area next to a sewage works!'

Remember that the design is - and always has been - constantly changing. Our ancestors go back some 3.5 billion years and were all different to us but were suited to their particular environment at the time (at least suited enough to reproduce!).

The human body probably evolved in a warm climate from a creature that spent a lot of time in trees. It is not necessarily adapted (yet) to the environments that we now find ourselves in, or have created for ourselves. Mind you, a 70-year lifespan far exceeds that of most human-made items and the human body is extremely flexible, adaptable and self-repairing.

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The alien question is a good one. My guess is that unmodified aliens with an intelligence on a par with ours would have:-

1 Larger genitals than necessary.
2 A fair sized brain storage area.
3 Good object manipulators (e.g. hands with opposable thumbs, although tentacles might work)
4 They will be carnivorous/omnivorous as they will have evolved from creatures that were predators, not prey.
5 Light receptors close together, as in humans (see reason 4).
6 Partially, if not fully, land-based (my human bias here?)
7 Not flying creatures (you have to be light, which can affect your ability to develop a large energy-hungry brain).
8 Warm 'blood' due to brain energy consumption.

Any views on these?

Two flippant comments I occasionally come out with at home or work:

'If God had mean't men to go around naked, He would have given them smaller hands.' (Think about it!
'God should have given women more hands.' (To fend men off with, mostly!

Seriously, though, there have been times when more hands would be useful, such as when trying to carry too much at once because I don't want to make more than one trip.

Somebody made a posting a while ago about needing more fingers (can't remember why). Well, some time ago a fossil aquatic animal was discovered that had flippers with 8 or 9 'toes'. Until this fossil was found, it was believed that all animals had evolved from creatures with only five fingers / toes. (Some animals have 'lost' toes, which is why some have less than 5.) The fossil's evolutionary line seems to have come to a dead end, otherwise we might have more fingers and toes than we do.

1) Larger genitals? I don't see how this matters. I think you could just as easily have self-fertilizing aliens, aliens with 3 or more genders and tiny little genitals, aliens with genitals that reside entirely in the body until needed...

2) A fair sized brain storage area. I agree that sufficient storage is necessary. But it might also be possible to have a more densely packed (and thus smaller) brain. One example might be a silicon brain utilizing a crystal infrastructure.

3) Good object manipulators. I feel this is necessary to maintain the absolute top ranking on the food chain, but I don't necessarily think all intelligent aliens must be in this position. They might be more like dolphins - intelligent but with predators and prey.

4) Carnivorous/omnivirous: See #3.

5) Light receptors close together. Again, I don't see this as absolutely necessary. You could have an alien that lives in a low-light area like deep-sea plankton and fish do. Such an alien would have no eyes at all, but would have feelers and other highly developed sensory organs. Anyway, if humans are so great, why can't we see infrared?

6) Land-based. I agree you are biased here. There is evidence that life can live in extremely hot and extremely cold temperatures, with a lot of light or very little. Dolphins and whales are quite smart, and they represent an inefficiant brain to body ratio that could be improved over time. There is no reason to believe that if water or other strange conditions were normal for an entire planet, an intelligent life couldn't develop there. But then, I tend to be an optimist.

7) Not flying creatures. I completely disagree here. An intelligent flying creature would absolutely be possible if it evolved on a low-gravity planet. Indeed, some otherwise livably planets might be nothing but atmosphere. Flying creatures would be ideal for these.

Fragilis knows what I mean. And as for things like "testicles have to be on the outside because of temperature etc" - I mean going right back to the beginning again and devising testicles that don't have to be cold - there must be a way.

And one of the things I had meant to put in at the beginning was, if over 2/3 of this planet is salt water, and a great percentage of the land is desert, ice or rainforest and practically uninhabitable, why do we have to live on the rarest type of surface?

For that matter, why not have an intelligent life form that can breath both on land and in the water?