Humanoid
Humanoid
!The [dwarves) of Germanic mythology are an example of humanoid beings.](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/DwarfbyBrokenMachine86.jpg/250px-DwarfbyBrokenMachine86.jpg)
Humanoid
A humanoid (; from English human and -oid "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically) similar, but not identical, to those of the human skeleton.
In theoretical convergent evolution
Although there are no known humanoid species outside the genus Homo, the theory of convergent evolution speculates that different species may evolve similar traits, and in the case of a humanoid these traits may include intelligence and bipedalism and other humanoid skeletal changes, as a result of similar evolutionary pressures. American psychologist and Dinosaur intelligence theorist Harry Jerison suggested the possibility of sapient dinosaurs. In a 1978 presentation at the American Psychological Association, he speculated that dromiceiomimus could have evolved into a highly intelligent species like human beings. In his book, Wonderful Life), Stephen Jay Gould argues if the tape of life were re-wound and played back, life would have taken a very different course. Simon Conway Morris counters this argument, arguing that convergence is a dominant force in evolution and that since the same environmental and physical constraints act on all life, there is an "optimum" body plan that life will inevitably evolve toward, with evolution bound to stumble upon intelligence, a trait of primates, crows, and dolphins, at some point.
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