I don't think an alien will be a blob. If aliens are out there they should have evolved just like us. They should have eyes and be walking on two legs. In short if there is any life out there then it is likely to be very similar to us.
From Simon Conway Morris
Massive self-confidence is boring.
The common ancient ancestor of mulluses and chordates could not possibly have possessed a camera eye, so quite clearly they have evolved independently. The solution has been arrived at by completely different routes.
The manner in which life constructs itself must be dealing with some other principle which we've failed to identify.
Pikaia is a missing link because, of all chordates, it's probably the most primitive.
I would argue that in any habitable zone that doesn't boil or freeze, intelligent life is going to emerge because intelligence is convergent.
One can say with reasonable confidence that the likelihood of something analogous to a human evolving is really pretty high.
As a number of people have stressed over the years, I think it would be premature to assume science itself will explain everything.
Scientists have wonderfully explained the organization of the universe, but that's really all it claims to do, and I think it does that very successfully.
The fact that some things are mysterious or that they touch on mystery isn't in some way a capitulation, and one should realize that there are some things that we may never understand and, to that extent, should be humbled by that.
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