Is it possible for an alien to give you the bird? The classic alien in Science Fiction (or around some trailer parks, Science Fact) has a big head, big eyes, skinny body and hands. Although having some distinguishing features that set them aside, they are certainly humanoid with a tubular body, arms, legs and a head. But what are the odds that intelligent life, at least capable of traveling the stars, communicating across long distances, and playing music in the Mos Eisley Cantina, would evolve with a Humanoid body plan? Does Science Fiction have it right, or is it just easier to put makeup and prosthetics on human actors?

And outwardly perhaps that is a ridiculous hypothesis, why in an infinite Universe full of so many variations and possibilities would intelligent species fit comfortably in our clothes, even if the pants might be too long or the sleeves a little too short? I’m not postulating that Urkle is an alien, but then again… There are eons of mutations and evolutionary tracks that alien life could take, why would they end up humanoid? Outside of other apes, it’s not reasonable to assume that with countless possibilities intelligence would always end up being close to us. We just can’t imagine what we haven’t seen, and we just haven’t seen it all.

But, it turns out we are pretty much optimized for intelligence as there might be a few logical conclusions we can gather from how life has evolved on Earth. On this planet, life forms have developed into a few simple patterns, tubular (worms), branching (plants), porous (sponge) and hollow (anemone). All of these basic variations have developed due to some basic selection pressures designed to allow an organism’s cells to respire, metabolize and discharge waste. In order to do this, body plans were selected in order to fulfill these requirements as cells need to be in close contact with the surrounding environment. This allows cells in the middle of our bodies not do die.

Additionally intelligence is more strongly tied to organisms that are mobile and predatory, which requires being able to move through different environments and anticipate the actions of another. Of the multicellular body plans, tubular forms lend themselves the best to these needs. So most likely alien intelligent species would be at least tubular. So we can safely remove all the horrible nightmares of being invaded by sponges.

Intelligent life is also likely to have a head, with clustered sensory organs such as the eye(s), nose and ear(s) in close proximity to a brain. Having these organs as close to the brain as possible will limit the amount of transmission time between inputs and output. This is called cephalization and there’s a big chance we would find this same evolutionary feature on ET.

Some of the driving factors of enhancing cognitive abilities are tool use, social interaction and language. Many social anthropologists have argued that without the need for the increased processing capacity to perform these tasks, the human brain would not have evolved to its current capacity. Appendages like arms and hands, trunks, tentacles, etcetera are required to actually manipulate tools. And although it is possible to communicate non-verbally, or with odors (think about that the next time you are arguing with tech support), the spoken word carries further and is much more versatile to share complex ideas. So having some sort of mechanism to manipulate tools and speak should be a common feature for intelligent life all over the Universe.

So did that alien just give you the finger? Maybe, depends if you think ET will be closer to a humanoid form including some approximation of a middle finger. It might be way more difficult to tell if you are more convinced that evolution knows more about the variations of intelligence than we can possibly imagine at this time.

And that is the subject of this month’s Smackdown! Will it be easy for ET to flip us off, or is this derisive act is going to require a bit more translation? As always, you decide! And please write your answer down rather than communicating non-verbally or with smells…