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Related: Why are there humans in the Star Wars Universe?

This is a subtly different question because I'm not asking whether there's a historical relationship between the two lineages.

I am asking this question because answers to these questions:

How did Anakin think the power to cheat death would be helpful?

When was Luke Skywalker conceived?

are making assumptions about the appearance of Padme while pregnant, the period of gestation, and appearance of newborn babies.

All of these presuppose that the "humans" of the Star Wars Galaxy are 100% biologically equivalent to us. In fact, as far as I know, we don't actually know any of those facts from canon. (Do we?) All we know is that "human" children and adults look like us.

So, do we have any canon or out-of-universe commentary that tells us that Star Wars humans and Earth humans are biologically equivalent?

Another way to put this would be

If presented with a Star Wars human and a Milky Way human, would the best doctors or the best medical droids be able to distinguish them?

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    My original basis was that midi-chlorians are more like symbionts or organelles and therefore don't impact the humanness of the host.
    – ThePopMachine
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 16:18
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    This is a pretty great question. The only label I recall hearing being applied to humans (and in this case, only some humans) was Corellian - which seems to indicate the planet a person was born on rather than what species they are. I assume that "human" is implicit since we can relate more easily to those characters while we hear "Wookie", "Bothan", and "Ewok" explicitly mentioned often enough.
    – Ellesedil
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 17:53
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    Actually, @Ellesedil, they do say human. For example, in the undeleted scene between Han and Jabba, Jabba, you're a wonderful human being.. The question is essentially whether human is an translation or approximation or they are literally supposed to be human in the biological sense.
    – ThePopMachine
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 18:05
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    @Richard: I'm not sure that the answer in that question applies because I can't recall or find any reference to books or movies called "Phantom Menace" or "Attack of the Clones". Are those fanfics?
    – Ellesedil
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 20:39
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    Let us continue this discussion in chat.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 23:07

2 Answers 2

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The canon answer is no.

Per the (fully Disney canon) Star Wars Made Easy factbook, the "humans" we see in the Star Wars universe are definitively not biologically related to humans from Earth.

ARE THE HUMANS THERE "US"?

You mean, did they come from Earth and have our history? No, they're in a galaxy far, far away—I thought we covered this! These humans are not related to us at all, though they are anatomically identical, which probably made casting the movies a lot easier.

The latter part of the quote also addresses your question about the biological differences. Aside from their possession of midi-chlorians (which can be tested for), humans in the Star Wars galaxy can't be distinguished from those on Earth.

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    Your quote explicitly calls them humans several times, and also mentions that they are "anatomically identical," explicitly mentioned in the question ("could the best doctors distinguish them")
    – Adamant
    Commented Jul 26, 2017 at 20:08
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    @Adamant - I've addressed the latter part of the question. Humans on Earth don't have midi-chlorians. Aside from that they're "anatomically identical"
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 26, 2017 at 20:10
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    @Adamant They're not humans as humans are Homo Sapiens. They are not homosapiens
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Jul 26, 2017 at 20:30
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    Yes, but except for the midi-chlorians, they basically are human (and are referred to as such in that very passage). As such, the title of the answer should be "mostly," in my opinion.
    – Adamant
    Commented Jul 26, 2017 at 21:43
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    @Valorum: The thing is, the OP explicitly says "I'm not asking whether there's a historical relationship between the two lineages". Yes/No answers are hard to do effectively on SE anyway (which question are you responding to with the header? "Are the humans in the Star Wars Galaxy really humans?" That's just the title, and you don't seem to be interpreting it in the way the OP intended. "If presented with a Star Wars human and a Milky Way human, would the best doctors or the best medical droids be able to distinguish them?" The answer seems to be "mostly no, but midichlorians mean yes")
    – wyvern
    Commented Jul 26, 2017 at 23:17
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I can't be sure, but the evidence indicates that they are really human.

Pablo Hidalgo is in charge of maintaining the coherence of canon in Star Wars following the Disney acquisition. According to him, speaking of Depa Billaba:

Chalactan is a culture and heritage. She is biologically human.

We should assume that Pablo Hidalgo means "human" in its usual sense. If Billaba is human, it makes sense to assume that the various individuals who resemble her in the Star Wars universe are human.

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    I don't think you can assume he means "human" in the real-world sense, since "human" is standard lingo for characters like Luke and Han in Star Wars. I think he just means "biologically the same race as other 'human' characters in Star Wars".
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Apr 10, 2016 at 5:51
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    I agree with @Hypnosifl's determination. This particular quote doesn't add anything except to give another example of the use of the word human for Star Wars Galaxy species. It doesn't tell us if it's literally true or just a translation/convention/approximation.
    – ThePopMachine
    Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 14:53
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    "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is." -- Bill Clinton
    – Paul
    Commented Jul 26, 2017 at 20:17
  • @Hypnosifl Han is referred to as a Corellian.
    – user66716
    Commented May 15, 2019 at 19:42
  • The linked tweet has been deleted.
    – galacticninja
    Commented Jul 20, 2022 at 9:10

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