/sci/ - Science & Math

>Just have a good time
we dont do that in sci. someone will be right with you to tell you why these creatures couldn't have evolved because there is no such thing as aliens/evolution/thought experiments

>Every alien has somehow evolved muscles

Don't be an autistic fuckwit and say it's necessary or inevitable, either.

>>3432600
This reminds me of the interaction between certain species of ants, acacia trees, and elephants.

http://www.natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic20/ants.htm

>>3432593
That is seriously fucking retarded, what use is walking upside down in the sea when you could swim?

>>3432601

Nah this place isn't so bad.

>>3432617
Getting all the light.

>>3432603
No one wants to sit down to draw realistic alien life and spend the time doodling random plants.

>>3432620
So why not just form a floating raft?

It's a pointlessly huge beast with a tremendously inefficient locomotion method.

>>3432603
Many creatures on Earth have independently evolved means of moving themselves about. Why would elsewhere be different?

Dawkins makes an interesting point on how echo location has developed individually about half a dozen times, as has sight. In one of his publisied chats with deGrasse Tyson

>>3432626

>why not make evolution deterministic?!

>>3432617

Why is this so unbelievable? Maybe those "foots" that float on the water surface look like food to some other animal and that creature just lurks under water and waits till somebody lands on it and then he strikes.

>>3432626

How do you know how big it is? There is no reference as far as I can see.

>>3432626
Oh, come on. Walking upside down while swimming is simply awesome. Deal with it.

why dont someone post discriptions / drawings of plants and animals from earth that are wierd and we try to guys which are made up?

>>3432630
>why not assume evolution makes random creatures poorly adapted to survival?

>>3432634
How long is that going to work for though?

>>3432638
By the scale of the waves, it's a reasonably massive creature.

>>3432640
That's the only reason for the picture to be, it's just daft to pretend it's a viable life form in the least.

>>3432641

You asked for it.

>>3432648
The scale of the waves? I don't see a huge wave among them. THis could be a small animal in a very shallow area. There is no scale in the picture at all. Making up the BS about the waves is grasping.

>>3432648
>How long is that going to work for though?

Wouldn't be the first time that a creature is trapped in an evolutionary blind alley.

>>3432652
Ok, so it's a foot tall, how does that make it any more viable?

>>3432653
Predator prey relationships based on deception that transparent won't be able to sustain themselves long enough for any significant adaptions to become pronounced.

>>3432623

looks derpy

>>3432661
>deception that transparent

Isn't that how any deception in the animal kingdom starts? Very poor but just good enough to make a tiny difference?

And how do you know there isn't some kind of plant that almost exactly looks that this creature when looked on from above?

>>3432661
>It's a pointlessly huge beast with a tremendously inefficient locomotion method.

That was your beef with it. As a smaller organism, wave motion and currents could be all the locomotion it requires. and if it gained energy from the sun, locomotion would be irrelevant anyway. Sure that one thing looks like a face, but how do you know it's not an anchor for stage 2 of its life cycle?

>>3432661

At the end of the day you can explain everything with sexual selection if you want to.

Maybe walking upside down at the water surface is a mating ritual that makes females really horny.

>>3432667
Without any more information about the ecosystem, speculation is pointless on that point.

>>3432673
>wave motion and currents could be all the locomotion it requires.

So why isn't it a jellyfish?

Keep It Simple Stupid.

>>3432676

And why aren't kinkajous monkeys?
Why aren't baboons apes?
Why aren't dogs foxes?
Why aren't cats bears?

Your question is pointless and irrelevant.

>>3432679
>elefants
>>3432680
>inephphicient

>>3432682
If all it needs to move are the currents in the water, why have legs at all?

Better phrasing for the question, you need me to make it simpler for you?

>>3432680

This is something I would call pointlessly huge.

>>3432688
At least it'd have decent mobility for traversing it's envoronment, considering the ground it'd have to cover to find enough lost mountaineers to sustain itself.

Needs bigger prey to excuse that huge maw though.

>>3432697
Sexual selection is fucking retarded, a six pack there must positively hinder the act of coitus.

>>3432687
It could be amphibious and use dem legs on ground, while chilling and absorbing light in the water.

>>3432687
I don't see legs at all.
Those things pointing towards the surface? Those aren't legs. Perhaps they evolved from legs, but clearly they are legs no longer. The mutation which allowed them to convert to extracting energy from the sun may have made legs pointless, and perhaps they are headed towards being a floating raft as you initially suggested. Why does it have certain parts? Because its ancestors had those parts.
Perhaps reproduction requires those to be far up? Maybe the head looking thing is an anchor, and once it is anchored, the "legs" grow upward, out of the water and produce spore-like gametes which must combine in the water with those from the opposite sex?

>>3432688

>>3432704
>>3432706
It's still a retarded creature, and in any sensible ecosystem, it'd be hunted to extinction.

>>3432711
Seeing as it exists, it's an ecosystem full of retarded creatures. Deal with it.

>>3432711

Just like snails. One fucking foot, and they don't even go fast? Jesus christ, how lame.

>>3432714
At least it'd give Humans a noble purpose in the universe I suppose...

>>3432715
Snails have plenty going for them, nothing wrong with being slow if you've got good protection and camoflage.

Another big one.

>>3432721
>implying a floating creature that looks like a plant isn't camouflaged...

>>3432649
dude... that looks like an STD

>>3432701


is this better?

>>3432725
Predators tend to be intelligent, four plants floating together will become an obvious target very rapidly.

>>3432638
I thought that one was a The 3rd birthday monster or something. But anyway, that game has a serious biological explanations for the existence of those twisted.

>>3432732


actually, there seems to be something missing...

>>3432734
Not if the predator is a carnivore.
Assuming it is small, only a small herbivore would go after a single set of four floating together. See those dangly things? they might work like anemones.

>>3432734
What if those creatures swim in swarms around real plants? You essentially get hundreds of almost identically looking plants, some of which are actually fake.

I really love this thread.

>>3432734

Maybe every plant like that has consists of these four floating blossoms?

>>3432772

That looks like it's from a website (since it has a creature of the week).

Do you have the link?

It takes a lot more faith to believe this wacko "science" garbage than to believe in a wonderful God that created our world. Keep grasping at straws "scientists". Like the Bible says You have become as fools. Thanks for yet another proof the Bible always speaks truth!
Romans 1:20-22
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

>>3432775
>testicle lurker

just nope

>>3432778
I think this is my favorite in this thread.
I love how the black and white breaks up the outline of the creature, especially against the background of its environment.

>>3432781

>>>/vp/

>>3432779

0/10

>>3432840
What's that from, then? Since there are all of those imaginary organisms.

>>3432840

The Snaiad creatures are really cool, aren't they? :)

The one who made them really tried to show that they all belong to the same evolutionary tree.

>>3432846
>live ICBMs
>herpaderp

All of these guys morphology seems to suggest that their planet has got earth-like gravity

>>3432855

This one doesn't

>>3432845
nemo-ramjet.deviantart.com/

Sadly, his main page http://www.nemoramjet.com seems to be down, I don't know if forever. He had speculative biology of an entire planet with different animals and regions.

This thing made by him is pretty cool too
www.mediafire.com/?ofyqjjiemgz

>>3432613

Its evolution is dictated by the need to find water in harsh desert conditions with low gravity.

low gravity allows the taller height as it searches for water-like ponds to travel to.

It consumes water through its legs using osmotic pressure through its skin and carries water like a camel if need to travel to find a new source of water.

Its long antennae are used to find water, food, and mating sources by detecting it through the air.

>>3432884

Nice! That sounds sensible.

Do this one!

>>3432696
Soooo beautiful

>>3432915

That thing could never survive. It looks ridiculous!

>>3432927

I think it is unliekly that an alien life form should look this much like a human.

Even our closest ancestors here on earth don't resemble us this much.

I think Michael Shermer explained one time in more detail why it would be qite a surprise.

>People failing to realize that the point of speculation is to try and figure out an environment they could have evolved in, not point out why they couldn't evolve in our current environment.


ITT Dumbfags.

>>3432957

this guy >>3432884 did it right.

And the discussion we had at the beginning about the water walker was interesting too I think

Gosh, it's really going to be hard to exploit the resources of other planets if we have to displace all these fucking weird aliens first.

I hope there isn't nearly this amount of life out there.

>>3432969

Please step on a nail, sir.

>>3432927

I think grays would have evolved in a situation closer to our own but with a few distinct differences-

For one, their ancestors would have been different. Likely some kind of slug that evolved spinal characteristics.

Three, their planet exists in an area that gets low sunlight but is in a haze of dawn/dusk twilight. Explains the large black eyes. Also lack of sun explains the lack of pigmentation.

Has to be done
>>3432697
>>3432732
>>3432744
>>3432804

>>3432976

Somehow my reason #2 got deleted when posting.

2. Their planet has a lack of resources outside of water or some other liquid, explaining their complexion and sleekness.

>>3432976

That neck looks a little thin to support the huge skull with (presumably) a heavy brain. So they have to live in an environment with less gravity unless they have some kind of super strong, force absorbing, flexible neck.

But I think the skull is just too human-like in general.

Chimpanzees have 99% of the same DNA code as us and they don't look so much like us.

>>3432972

What's the deal?

>>3432994
>I hope there isn't nearly this amount of life out there.

Life is the most precious thing in all of existence (that we know of).

So stop saying something stupid like that. It's like saying: "Gee all these useless works of art and musical masterpieces are distracting when I want to look at poop."

>>3432995

I wonder why penis necked gazelles never took off on Earth.

>>3433001
>Life is the most precious thing in all of existence (that we know of).

Right, so we get to those planets, build a few zoos, exterminate the aliens and pack the planet full of non-retarded terrestrial life forms.

That way we can fit much more of this precious thing onto each planet we want!

>>3433004
Don't watch their food and keep eating each other's shit most likely.

>>3433007
>non-retarded terrestrial life forms

So where will you live? ZING!

>>3432976
>>3432983
>>3432989

hello, advanced civilization such as the greys likely genetically enigeered themselves to look that way. in other words, their appearance is not a result from natural process of evolution, but from their own design. their evolutionary ancestors that haven't undergone genetic engineering, probably look vastly different.

>>3433007
>exterminate the aliens
>look I am so dark and edgy! pretty cool, eh? I also laugh out loud during death scenes in the cinema so everybody can see how much of a badass I am.

>>3433020

And what was their incentive to have such human like facial features and skull?

>>3433025
What's dark and edgy about the main human activity of the last few tens of thousands of years?

We will find stuff we want on the planet, and set about taking it for ourselves one way or another, with moderate concern for the alien life present.

Don't pretend we're going to be so ethical about how precious xeno microbes are once we've found them half a dozen times.

>>3432892

I assume that red thing in front of its face is soft tissue instead of hard horn-like material because of the veins present on it. This could suggest that it can be used like an elephants trunk but with the added bonus of it being its mouth as well.

it would have smell and taste receptors on the tip of the trunk to detect food, water, and pheremones.

It has a strong armor like spike on its back which could be used for ramming. This also suggests that the trunk could be retractable if need be in case of predation or jousting between males.

Coloration suggest that this species is male.

Has two stalks for eyes, not very effective for predatory animal, this along with the horns suggest that this is a herbivore. Also, this suggest that the trunk is probably the primary sensory organ as the eyes seem less developed than the trunk.

Has two small "hands" like a T-Rex. this suggest that there is no evolutionary pressures on the need to develop the 2 hands.

It's environment suggest swamp-like conditions and with the need of armor, this environment must have some pretty dangerous predatory animals

>>3433035

Once we have the technology to colonize other planets and even leave our solar system we will have virtually infinite ressources - enough for everybody.

The thing I see such potential future humans desire is exploration itself.

Comparing the savage of humanity's infancy to the adult of its prime is just as fair as comparing a present day human to a violent ape in the wild.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY59wZdCDo0

>>3433046
>virtually infinite ressources

Oh yeah, but the skulls of these aliens are such lovely conversation pieces, look at the way the light catches them.

Bam, space poachers.

Just because we'll have infinite resources doesn't mean we won't still have an economy, it'll just be driven by other pressures. One of the pressures will be to try and preserve these lovely aliens.

That will make the skulls MUCH more valuable...

>>3433044

Dude you should think about making a (side) job out of your imagination!

I love seeing fictional documentaries such as "Alien Planet".
You could be one of the guys who writes about these fictional creatures with assistance of biologists and physicists (if you aren't one yourself).

>>3433056

What's the point of capitalism when everybody lives in abundance anyway?

And when machines do all the "lesser" jobs for us which don't require higher mental capabilities everybody who wants to earn a higher status in society will have to get smart.

Hunting after rare alien skulls as status symbols or because of supersititious reasons? Such petty concerns will only make you looked down upon in a highly educated and advanced society.

>>3433071
>Hunting after rare alien skulls as status symbols or because of supersititious reasons? Such petty concerns will only make you looked down upon in a highly educated and advanced society.
>implying there is only one possible "correct" way to have a "highly educated and advanced society"

You must not get exposed to much culture outside your own.

>>3433056
As long as there is a non-infinite and/or non-instantaneous supply of ANYTHING for which there is ANY demand, there will be a need for trade, and hence, some kind of economy.

Maybe if we all go to the Q continuum, "post-scarcity" reasoning will apply.

>>3433081

Not to the kind of highly advanced culture we are talking about here.

If we are talking about present day humans we are on the same page.

>>3433091
Even if we have infinite material and nano assemblers, there will still be things to trade, art would likely become the largest industry, and particularly beautiful places to live will always be in high demand.

What would you pay for a house on a planet next to the horsehead nebula?

>>3433091
>infinite
>instantaneous

Wouldn't that be the consequence of having achieved interstallar travel? You get relatively quick (otherwise your form of travel is too slow to make to another star in your lifetime anyway) access to BILLIONS of planets with all kinds ressources.

>>3433100
You still seem to be assuming that there is only one "correct" and "advanced" culture which all technologically advanced races will tend towards.

Given that value judgments are entirely arbitrary within the bounds of what allows survival, I don't find that an especially defensible suggestion.

those dinosaur pictures are amazing

>>3432913

is true art, the six legged long necked dudes are a close second.

>>3433111
If it costs anything to get, it's not free.

Energy is always finite, even if abundant. Resources even more so. And then there's things that are necessarily unique, like the lagrange points of a given star system (you can't all you use them!), items of subjective value (like the original Mona Lisa), etc.

Assuming "everything is free now lolz" is never going to be true. 0 is an impossible price. Some things can become very, very *cheap*, certainly, but that gives you a very different prediction than assuming price is literally 0.

>>3433110
>What would you pay for a house on a planet next to the horsehead nebula?

I think that falls into the "petty desires" category. All of that stuff people mostly do because they want to establish a high status. When society largely decides that the highest status belongs to smart, enlightened people rather than a guy with a big house at an exotic place people will be more interested in exploring the life of alien planets rather then destroying it to build a house there.

>>3433060

Thanks bro, im pretty well-read when it comes to evolutionary biology.


this creature strikes me as a vine climber. When we compare our evolutionary development, fish came out of water onto land.

This creature's evolution history suggest it came from water to the trees.

It has pincer like hands in all pairs of its legs, suggesting no land evolution.

It has a long wispy, but paddle-like tail suggesting an earlier fish-like ancestor.

Has a movable head and two closely paired eyes which suggest probable predation at the very least an omnivore. Small teeth limits on what it can eat though; probably plants and insects.

It has a tongue like structure sticking out of its mouth, probably used as a sense of smell and/or taste, probably to find possible mates.

It has tufts of hair, I do not believe that this was used for warmth however because its environment is swamp-like and the tail and legs are not covered which would be inefficient.

Given the environment is vine-like and could span pretty high up vertically, this tuft of thick fur could be used as a support for its offspring. Like how a Possom carries its young by having them grasp their fur while traveling up and down a tree.

This suggest this specimen is female.

As for the environment: Very tall trees with plenty of jungle vines, hot and humid with a lot of insects, this environment is homologous to the Tree-top environments of the Amazon.

>>3433125
(not that guy)
It's not just about status symbols though.

What about megaprojects? The illusion of infinite resources is quickly broken. A dyson sphere would be very expensive to make, unless you're actually and literally omnipotent, thermodynamics be damned.

>>3433112
>Given that value judgments are entirely arbitrary within the bounds of what allows survival, I don't find that an especially defensible suggestion.

In what allows survival, sure. But we are talking about creatures which are so technologically advanced that they can travel from one solar system to the next.

These creatures will necessarily have the ability to understand the reality around them in a pretty detailed way and also the urge to do so - otherwise they never would have made these scientific advances in the first place.

>>3433144
Sure, I'd agree that they would value something like "science", i.e., valuing what works.

But then deciding what to ACCOMPLISH, what you VALUE, is another matter. Maybe the like filling the galaxy with cheesecake. It might have some deep philosophical beauty for them.

Wait, are we talking about any hypothetical civilization, or one descended from homo sapiens?

>>3433142
>megaprojects

And why exactly would you have to destroy the wild-life of planets to realize such projects?

>>3433154
It's orbiting the binary star system I want to use as the centerpiece.

imagine a water planet where ''animal-like'' organisms come to the land before ''plant like animals''

>>3433154
>And why exactly would you have to destroy the wild-life of planets to realize such projects?
Gotta get the necessary material from somewhere. It could easily encroach on a habitat somewhere, especially if rarer elements are needed.

But I might be missing something while joining this thread. I was contesting the idea of "post-scarcity", not whether there are still inherent conflicts between industry and nature.

>>3433162

what the hell is a "plant-like animal"

>>3433168
Mostly sedentary?

>>3433151

I was talking about future humans.

But I still think that values are not AS arbitrary. I mean at the end of the day they must have SOME rational (either from an evolutionary point of view or because of the rationality of the creature itself).

And I think we are also necessarily talking about a social creature. One organism can not achieve something like this in its own lifetime. It needs many friends and to pass down knowledge to future generations.

So we are talking about a species (even if we imagine an alien race and not future humans) that have some kind of empathy and therefore would probably at least value the life of other sentient beings to some extend.

>>3433169
Or at least partially autotrophic (energy from sunlight, etc).

>>3433171
Sure, that all sounds reasonable.

>>3433175

Uhm...thank you. That never happened to me before on 4chan.

>>3433037

interesting creature.

I see it as a tree-climber predator. It has pincers which suggest reliance on tree and vine climbing rather than land walking.

Its color formation suggest that the trees have yellow/blue tree color foilage Or that this creature is able to camouflage itself just before leaping and striking.

It has 2 pairs of eyes, 2 above its trunk (which is most likely used for smell sensory) and 2 below its mouth.

given that the trunk blocks the view of the eyes on top, the bottom two eyes are probably used in flight as way to keep track of the prey while it is gliding towards the kill.

Its mouth seems to either lack a jaw, or has a very small jaw structure, which would hinder this predator to soft and small prey only OR IF there are bigger animals this could possibly glide on top of them and live as a ectoparasite chewing on the soft tissue of bigger animals.

>>3433188
Statistical anomalies, man, I tell you what.

>>3433169

Does it consume other animals and/or plants or does it create its own food?

>>3433203
Not that guy, but I want to volunterr that our very own venus flytraps do both. Pitcher plants too.

>>3433137
>Given the environment is vine-like and could span pretty high up vertically, this tuft of thick fur could be used as a support for its offspring. Like how a Possom carries its young by having them grasp their fur while traveling up and down a tree.

That line really came to live in my mind's eye!

Also congratz for coming up with this stuff in such a short amount of time.

does any of you has a link to a sci-documentary of probable life in another planet?

that humans send a couple of AI robots to explore? the main ideias were a planet with less gravity and lesser dense "aliens"..

it ended in the robots beeing attacked by some sort of primitive alien life

>>3433223

Yes. It is called Alien Planet. The robots were attacked by that >>3432586 thing.

And here is the link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3106679767514635043

Enjoy :)

>>3433205

yes that is true, but you can't have consumers without the producers first.

>>3433236
thank you

>>3433223

Isn't that the pair of robots where their A.I. was configured where one was super curious and the other super protective?

>>3433253

Don't remember. I just remember that the Planet was called Darwin.

>>3432586

This makes me wish I was born whenever we try to colonize Venuses upper atmosphere so I could see something--human engineered--like this from my oxygen lifted aerostat!

>>3433253
yeah, there was 3 robots, 1 didn't survive the reentry

and they were all programed differently, by memory I think that one of them was more lean to take more risks then the other

Meet vagina face

never seen so much bullshit

come back when you learn some biology

>>3433168
LOL

>>3433458
A strange seed was planted on its back at birth. The plant sprouts and grows with this Pokémon.

>>3433365

We will never learn if you just say "it's bullshit" instead of actually explaining what's the problem with these creatures.

>>3432775
This is the opposite of what would happen. Why would it poison its consistent food source? Instead, it would probably develop a way to make testicles produce more blood and more sperm. INSTANT BIG BALLS OF SEXUAL PROWESS.

Shit tier artist here, but I'm a conworlding faggot so I'll do what the reverse of everyone else is doing: The creatures I have been on-and-off tinkering with live on a moon of a gas giant which is close to a red dwarf star. There is little environment, so fucktons of radiation. As a result, they've incorporated large amounts of silicate into their biology as a defensive means against radiation, so there are a lot of creatures that looks like echidnas, porcupines, pangolins, etc., and likely things like turtles (and other animals with a thick defensive shell). Flora would develop this as well, so there are also a lot of things that have a vaguely cactus--like appearance.

>>3433534

More along the lines of a parasite doing it's best to leech life off the organism without harming it to much. It *won't* poison the host just cause. It won't produce more blood and sperm just cause neither. It will probably just leech blood and perhaps inject a poison in the host if it can detect the host is developing a resistance to the parasite. The offspring with the chance to grow and carry the slight advantage of resisting the parasite will be non exsistant due to the poison being their to hinder the orginal host creature sterile.

http://chanarchive.org/request_votes

achive this shit

>>3433587
mission accomplished

.

I think you guys should go and play spore

>>3433897
WELL FUCK YOU TOO MISTER, I THINK YOU SHOULD GO AND SODOMIZE YOURSELF WITH AN ECHIDNA, BUT WE DON'T ALWAYS GET WHAT WE FUCKING WANT NOW DO WE?

>>3433901
Do you know what is spore?

>>3433904
YES I FUCKING DO, WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I SAW THROUGH YOUR THINLY VEILED INSULT TO OUR COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE?

>>3433908
lol

>>3433908
Nice one anon nice one.

>>3433913
>>3433923
Although...

http://critterding.sourceforge.net/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaG-ttwCTNE

Of potential interest to /sci/?

>>3433930

I hope they will soon make an evolution game with a big budget (or as a big scientific experiement).

>>3433944

To elaborate: the problem with these "primitive" programs is that the environment in which these things evolve is very simple and bland.

They should create a vast virtual environment with all sorts of different influences (just like the real world). These would allow the artificial evolution to employ a vast multitude of interesting tactics,

How was the super nintendo evolution game called?

HOPE THEY MAKE MORE LIKE THESE NOT SPORE CRAP

>>3434085
EVO: Search for Eden.

Stupid and hard game, but fucking FUN and crazy.

>captcha: ifficatt example

bump :(

>>3434168
>EVO
>mfw that game
>mfw image limit