I’m a big fan of science fiction, and like many geeks the Star Trek franchise has held a special place in my heart. They’ve consistently produced quality shows and have done a reasonably good job maintaining a consistent fictional universe. Unfortunately, like almost every sci-fi series, they make 2 big mistakes with aliens: there are lots of them and they all look like humans.

There’s a chance that there maybe a dozen or so intelligent species around right now in our galaxy (Hey Mr. Drake!). Consertive estimates of the formula show that there are likely at lease one or two other intelligent species around. Unfortunately, the galaxy is really friggin big. Even if we could explore the whole quarter of the galaxy and the optimistic versions of the drake equation are true, we would only meet 3 or 4 alien species.  Life on other planets may be fairly common, but expect to find bacteria not klingons.

If we do find aliens, they will at least look like us. Right? Based on most science fiction, they will just have pointy ears or blue skin and otherwise look just like us. Unfortunately, the aliens are based primarly on the fact that most actors here on Earth are human. If an alien spaceship landed on Earth and pointy eared humans walked out, just about every scientist on Earth would be dumbfounded. Think about the billions of mutations and changes that have resulted in modern homo sapiens. Does is it really seem reasonable that the same process of billions of mutations on another planet with a different environment would also result in humans?

If we survive long enough to find another intelligent alien species, expect some weird stuff.