Is It Possible For An Alien Species To Have Evolved

[Gold Barz]

Both our kind of intelligence (a civilization) and superior physical abilities (like superhuman strength, speed, agility, etc).

 

[quetzalcoatl9]

yes.

they are a rather bizarre race known as "homo sapiens". the funny thing is that most of them are convinced that they are somehow very limited in their abilities.

 

[Gold Barz]

What?...I am talking about species on other planets.

And humans do have physical limits, do you see any humans out there flying? running across the country in one day, carrying around a firetruck?

I think it is possible for an alien species to evolve into a technological species and still having all these superhuman phsyical abilities but that would only mean that the other species on their planet must be 10 times as faster, stronger, quicker, agile, etc.

 

[quetzalcoatl9]

What?...I am talking about species on other planets.

oh, i see...well, there really isn't a large database of knowledge on such a thing i guess, since we haven't even visited any other planets let alone examine any other beings.

And humans do have physical limits, do you see any humans out there flying?

i flew to NY just last week

running across the country in one day, carrying around a firetruck?

what possibile evolutionary advantage would such a thing serve?

since all we know about is this planet, we may as well ask relevant questions that we can apply our knowledge to.

an interesting question might be: is there a necessary distinction between technological and biological power? couldn't it be argued that they are both evolutionarily driven?

 

[Gold Barz]

I meant scientific speculation, obviously we don't have any kind of evidence to base this kind of stuff on.

By flying, I meant just flapping their "wings" or whatever and going up in the air and just gliding not by airplane or helicopter.

Strength is a very useful physical ability.

 

[quasi426]

Evolution is blind to ego!

Evolution is blind to the ego of a species. A species with any attributes can evovle so long as the environment (competition, temperature, gravity etc. ) aids in the selection process. Humans may think that they can select proper humans to breed and make a superhuman species, but eventually the environment will one day become to much to handle and nature will once again be the main selective driving force.

 

[ramollari]

Does physical strength and agility evolve along with intelligence? It is difficult to speculate, because all depends on the environment that pushes the evolution. But take the human society as example: physical strength is becoming less and less a survival advantage in a society which is regulated by laws and where money is the most important evolutionary advantage. Also one can speculate that in the future, with the development of technology, some physical abilities can be substituted or aided by artificial means. So I would hardly expect an alien species that has evolved in intelligence and technology far ahead of us, to be physically very strong.

 

[matthyaouw]

I'm going to go with the quick and easy answer- Yes. Hypothetically, life could evolve with traits different to ours.

 

[Gold Barz]

I think so too, like it would depend on the planet, if everything on one particular planet is more vicious, more faster, more stronger, etc. than Earth then it would probably breed creatures with superior strength, speed, agility, etc. than the creatures on Earth.

 

[Phobos]

It’s possible, however, consider a couple things….

If everything were more vicious, then there would be more killing. More killing means less reproduction. Less reproduction leads to extinction. It may become beneficial to be more passive & stay hidden…letting the vicious species wipe each other out.

Increasing strength (or speed, etc.) has a cost….more energy consumption for one thing. Food limitations can limit that type of growth. And just how strong does something need to be? Just slightly stronger than it’s competition? That may escalate until some limit is reached (anatomical dead end, food limitation, etc.). At that point, the species may spread out and adapt to different environments where maximum strength is not as necessary.

There are a lot of different ecological niches that can be filled and species tend to fill them all. Each niche can have its own “best” adaptation (also recall offensive & defensive adaptations). Here on Earth, there are many creatures that are stronger or faster or tougher than humans…but that’s fine for us because our niche is shaped by our intelligence.

 

[Gold Barz]

So can a specie be both stronger, faster, not neccessarily more vicious but also with civilization-like intelligence?

If everything was more vicious I don't think every vicious specie would therefor kill each other and go extinct, they would probably kill the less-abled (less vicious?) specie but the more vicious species would become more and more vicious because if you arent then you die (unless you hide, like you said).

Also do you really need viciousness as a way of evolving into a more stronger, faster, quicker, etc. species?

 

[Gold Barz]

I think vicious is not the right word, I think fierce or ferociousness would do better in its place. So if the "competition" is extremely intense physically, wouldn't creatures on that planet evolve with superior physical abilities? I think vicious is not a right word, sorry about that.

 

[wasteofo2]

I don't think there's really any reason you couldn't have species that have physical abilities far superior to humans on other planets.

For something on earth, it's inconceivable to run around the planet in a day, but who's to say that such things might not be easily conceivable and common in other environments? That there are mamals such as the sloth on earth, and other mamals such as the cheetah should show that huge divergences in physical abilities (speed) isn't that improbable at all.

Perhaps on some other planet organisms have evolved a means of energy production that's very different from the animals on earth. Perhaps on some other planet the animals are all derive their energy exclusively from abundant atmospheric gasses, and with having a nearly unlimited supply of them, they can traverse the entire surface of the planet at a speed that may seem impossible to earthlings.

There's also no reason why organisms with wings (or other methods of flying) couldn't have also developed civilization.

However, based solely on our limited knowledge of Earth biology, it would seem that a more intelligent species of organism wouldn't necessarily need to have particularly impressive physical characteristics. Humans have very mundane physical attributes when compared to most mamals of comprable sizes. However, since humans have superior intellects than most other animals, we can build things such as weapons to compensate for our physical superiority. So it would make sense that the most intelligent organism on some other planet wouldn't necessarily need to be physically impressive, as long as they could manipulate their environment to their needs.

That being said, there's no way of knowing if another planet might just have an entirely different level of physical ability among it's organisms. It could be that the most intelligent species wouldn't need to be that strong or fast compared to the other organisms on its planet, but it could end up being far stronger and faster than any human, just by chance.

 

[Gold Barz]

That being said, there's no way of knowing if another planet might just have an entirely different level of physical ability among it's organisms. It could be that the most intelligent species wouldn't need to be that strong or fast compared to the other organisms on its planet, but it could end up being far stronger and faster than any human, just by chance.

I agree with you.