It's time for us to accept that we implicitly modify everything we touch. Prime directive needs to have some detectability metric by which we decide it's OK for us to go gangbusters. If the native martian amoebas cannot survive with us present then they lose the evolution race, sorry.
Besides, if there are primitive life forms on Mars, it's quite presumptuous of us to assume we could so easily wipe them out.
While I agree with the general idea, I also hope that, if there are more advanced civilizations out there and they find us, that they don't consider us "native amoebas".
Me too, although our morality doesn't influence their choices unless we can communicate with them and/or realistically fight for our survival. Do you think there are races out there quietly observing our behavior and preparing their verdict? If so, I sure hope we are given awareness of membership in the law before the sentencing.
I always thought that the main reason for being careful about bringing microbes to Mars is so that it is easier to tell whether any microbes we find on Mars evolved there. I thought that being careful about bringing microbes to Mars will stop being important to most of the people who currently care about it after we determine where any microbes we find there evolved. Was I wrong about that?
