A Science Fiction Riddle

Nope, just a game. The rules are not explicit, but come out in my answers.

Yes yes yes. I’m not saying you are uninformed. I’m just saying that this is a vanishingly low probability explanation for the story. Science fiction, sure. But in our galaxy? The chances of a reproductively compatible race on another planet is implausible, less likely than discovering that Octopi can breed viable offspring with horses. Or the discovery of a shark-whale hybrid in fisherman’s net.

Not reproductive compatibility. Think about it. White rhinos and black rhinos are not reproductively compatible. Asian elephants and African elephants are not reproductively compatible. In our understanding of biology, there may be attracters for a form (look at fish and whales), but it is much hard to imagine attracters that could give rise to reproductive compatibility.

That is a cool idea.

Now, that is a seriously creative and potentially plausible theory. I’m sure people would wonder this in the moment, and perhaps find out its true. That was beyond my own creativity Andy. I love it.

Well of course that is the case in Star Trek. They care a great deal about physics jargon, but are totally disinterested in biology.

My big brother used to decide the rules of the game as we were playing it, too. Explains my resulting personality disorder.:scream:

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This describes a great deal of popular sci-fi, unfortunately. Have you read my BioLogos piece about physics and biology in Star Wars and sci-fi generally? (link)

I did appreciate that in The Martian, botany is equally as important for problem-solving as rocket science and engineering are. Another recent story I appreciated was (is? I’m not sure if it is cancelled or on hiatus) the comic series Surgeon X which highlights the challenges posed by increasing antimicrobial resistance. So maybe the future for biology in storytelling is brighter than the past.

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Maybe the “Ancient Aliens” that the History Channel keeps going on about, took a sample of people back with them, and bred them for the past whatever thousand years, and now they have returned to breed with us, and…I dont know take over the internet?? or cable news? (wait! that explains, Fox!).

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Side note…would Homo sapiens 300 kya, be able to interbreed with Homo sapiens today?

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Why not. The Neanderthals did. Apparently.

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They might not wish to breed with savages, of course…:grinning:

Don’t forget about this riddle too. It shall be answered soon.

Well Christopher Columbus’ men had no reluctance breeding with the savages they found. If history and genomic sequencing has taught us anything, it is that humans would breed with anyone.

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No hope of evolutionary advance in the next 300kya, then? You neutralist, you.

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Certainly humans continue to evolve but the driver is no longer neutral gene changes. Human brains, bodies, and cultures have all evolved over the past 2 million years in a grand symbiosis. Now our technology will drive our evolution and do it at an ever pace.

I noticed this topic popped to the top again. Did I miss the answer?

They are time travelers from our own future, whose computer navigation systems finally completed the reverse time “GPS” calculations involved in interstellar time and space travelling. Careful; you might accidentally mate with one your very own distant progeny!

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Lol!
So many not-safe-for-work jokes come to mind. A few involve horrible stereotypes about West Virginians.

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Not yet. I’ve been a bit occupied. But soon I’ll get some time to give my solution. Though, this is fictional, so my solution might be no better than the rest :smile:.

@Ashwin_s, how would you answer this riddle? What about you @Wenlok?

They walk, talk, and look like a duck…and are capable of reproducing fertile offspring?
Hmm. Clearly, we can deduce we are one species, or we are just producing hybrids.

This case is similar to the Australian Black tip shark, and Common Black tip shark being found to interbreed.

All we need to figure out is how exactly they got to that planet, if indeed that it can be authenticated of course.

This can be accomplished on interrogating them on the history of there life on that planet. If the information from each one aligns we can then move on to drawing a picture of there history and what events occured here on earth that correspond to the dates and detail given(Wide reports of alien abduction).

Am i looking to deep into this?

I think you are getting to the crux of the riddle. Let us say you do all this and find they really did have an origin on another planet. What then?

Well it obvious they had their origins on earth assuming A) Speaking modern english B) Have similar and limited diversity like eye color and skin color. Knowing this, and assuming a long time(not too long) has passed since their presumed departure of earth, to another planet, we should observe some increasing differences, such as better focal lenses, different nose structures etc. These differences will show adaptation which should have occurred even if the planet is earth like, considering these people of varying diversity came originally from different parts of our planet.

If we dont see this, then i think it’s logical to assume we got shape shifters among us, and we just breeded with them :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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A supernatural answer would be easy…
One restricted to natural causes would have to suppose some extreme form of law of forms…
I.e that nature has only a limited repertoire or possible variations to choose from…
This would make it so that if life exists anywhere, it will look like one or other life form on earth…
So a human like alien would be feasible ke in such a situation. Maybe even expected.

Edit: it can be explained mathematically…

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