I think it would be important to know in the context of space exploration, assuming we can solve the other very hard problems standing in the way of a Star Trek future (though I’m not holding my breath lol), we’d need to know if we should stay the fuck away from any planets we find with life or if we can make contact without potentially dooming both our planet and theirs to potentially returning to the single-celled life stage.

But yeah, it is likely a real world pandora’s box.