Forget those creepy green aliens or alien species with octopus-like tentacles. A biologist explained the science behind the human-like Star Trek aliens. Aside from aliens with large heads, ears or scales, the hit sci-fi series has portrayed aliens which are Indistinguishable or very common to humans like the Aldeans, Betazoids, Vulcans and more. Other experts also believed that if aliens do exist, they would look similar to humans.
The Star Trek franchise has revealed dozens of races indistinguishable from humans called humanoids. In an episode of the Star Trek: The Next Generation titled "The Chase," it was revealed that about four billion years ago, the first humanoid civilization explored the universe. To prevent extinction, they scattered DNA fragments to class-M planets which triggered the rise of human-like civilizations.
This theory has also been considered by other scientists however, Mohamed Noor, an evolutionary biologist at Duke University in North Carolina said otherwise. Noor explained that this theory is impossible because the possibility of developing various worlds from only one genetic material is incredibly low.
"This model ignores things like the difference in heart placement -- perhaps unlikely -- or the Vulcan copper, rather than human iron-based, blood -- also unlikely," Noor told Space. "But the overall principle is more probable than the notion that the species evolved completely independently to look almost the same after billions of years."
Noor then gave a possible explanation for the human-like Star Trek aliens. He said it is more plausible if the Preservers transported some of human's ancestors, the Homo erectus, in another planet millions of years ago (billions is too long). He added that would result in life-forms that could be more closely related to humans.
On the other hand, other experts also believed that if there are possibly aliens in another planet which is not yet to be discovered by astronomers. They would definitely have the same features as humans like the Star Trek aliens. Previously Professor Simon Conway explained this theory using the principle of convergent evolution, the process where different organisms independently evolve the same traits in similar environments, in the book "The Runes of Evolution," cited The Independent UK.
