ElikAruna
i do believe in aliens. but they're probably not like the kind in the movies that are slimy with tentacles and such. they're probably like us.
Life that evolves on another planet isn't going to look or act anything like us because organisms that develop in completely different, isolated locations are going to have completely different set of environmental conditions.
Take a look at culture, for example. Culture evolves much like organisms: the strongest traditions persist for centuries, and the less important ones fade away. For example, since Japan has a completely different location (an island chain with not much arable land) and neighboring influences than the U.S. (nearly a whole continent of wide, varying landscapes), Japanese culture evolved over the years to be completely different.
Sure, there are similarities, but these are due to the fact that Japanese and Americans are both human. With a distant alien race, they won't even be human. Odds are, they won't even be bipedal, erect-walking, symmetrical beings. They might breathe water or maybe even methane. Their bodies might even be based off some element other than carbon. They might even have something resembling DNA that is radically different than our double-helix GTAC pairings.
Thinking aliens all resemble humans is a naive and ultimately arrogant belief fostered by classic science fiction that is primarily espoused by people who have no idea how evolution works. The reason aliens in science fiction tend to resemble humans is because aliens that resemble humans in at least some capacity are much easier for us to relate to as characters than something that's completely alien. It's much easier to love or hate something that look like us than it is to feel the same way about a huge bug with twelve eyes.
