Scientist: Aliens will be bear-sized

Shayne Jacopian for redOrbit.com – @ShayneJacopian

In a universe with countless planets, there’s a good chance that some of them can, and do, support life. Scientists aren’t sure what any of these aliens will look like, but a Univerity of Barcelona scientist makes a statistical argument that most will weigh about 700 pounds. That means they’ll be about the size of bears, according to an article published by Live Science.

Bayes’ (Bae’s) theorem

Fergus Simpson’s findings are based on a model called Bayes’ theorem, as well as a field of math called Bayesian statistics. Beginning by calculating how many individuals were likely to live in any given alien civilization (about 50 million), Simpson asserted that any individual would be more likely than not from a highly populated civilization, according to the source.

Earth, with about 7 billion inhabitants, is one of those highly populated civilizations, according to Simpson, and most other habitable planets would have about 50 million aliens inhabiting them. Additionally, Earth is a larger planet than average for an inhabitable planet, with Simpson suggesting that most planets would be as little as half the size of Earth.

Given the correlation between the physical size and population size of a species (there are more ants than humans, for instance), it can be predicted that, on a planet considered to be of average size for a life-supporting planet, members of an alien civilization would likely have a median weight of 692 pounds—about as much as a bear or elk.

A problem with bear-sized beings

Some scientists say this analysis has some problems, however. For instance, Michael Copp, professor of theoretical biology and evolution at Aix-Marseille University in France, says that it’s equally possible that Earth could be the median civilization size, rather than at the most densely populated end of the hypothetical spectrum of possible civilizations. Kopp also says that the assumption that species size correlates with population size is unfounded.

“The prediction that most civilizations contain less than 50 million individuals is based on the assumption that the distribution of civilization sizes corresponds to the distribution of species sizes … but there are no particular reasons to believe this is so,” Kopp told Live Science.

Let’s hope that Kopp is right and Simpson is wrong, because if we go to war with an alien civilization, nobody wants to fight bear-sized beings.

We will lose. Every time.

—–

Follow redOrbit on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest.

redOrbit.com
offers Science, Space, Technology, Health news, videos, images and
reference information. For the latest science news, space news,
technology news, health news visit redOrbit.com frequently. Learn
something new every day.”