Originally Posted by Jire

Speculating is always good, but on the other hand I see no reason why the source of this discovery would lie about it/modify the info? We have a pretty wide scale of information about microbs throughout the time of Earth's existence due to that microbs don't change that rapidly so we have samples from the area of discovery of that meteor about the microbs throughout time to compare with the ones found from the meteor.

Ps, someone on the prev. page: It's relative how "infinite" our universe is. We can measure the approximate diameter of the universe, and that is nothing like the concept of infinity, which is not measurable :P

Originally Posted by Odlov

1. Go to the woods. Pick a random square foot of soil. There are numerous bacteria in it not known to science.

2. Bacteria can change extremely rapidly under environmental pressure, because they reproduce faster than anything else alive. That's their main competitive advantage. Multicellular animals like people can't adjust anywhere near as fast biologically.

Originally Posted by T0ribush

I really, doubt other sentient beings would wipe us all out. They would either be extremely curious to what our species is about or they would be so curious to make contact in some manner or form.

I just seriously think if any other sentient beings in the galaxy/universe somewhere were more advanced than us they would either help us on our way in evolution or not even make contact for a few more years to let our race settle down.

Originally Posted by Warcry

Do you know why the human race spread all over Earth? It's because we were looking for new places to colonize and take resources from. That's the main goal of exploration, gaining new territory. If a race more advanced than ours was to come across this planet, it's highly likely they'd either invade us or use biological weaponry on us and then steal all our minerals for fuel or somesuch. Because I know that's what the human race will be doing once we start space exploration.

Originally Posted by Odlov

I disagree, actually. Both with you and Hawking ;)

When a species have developed technology to cross countless light years of space, they probably wouldn't need anything we have. I think they would study us and our culture simply to expand their knowledge, kind of like we study monkey behavior. They'd fill their Wiki entry on "Earth", and then probably be on their merry way. Moreover: they wouldn't even necessarily grant us the privilege of knowing that we were visited.