alt Hacker NewsLikely we don't need to replicate. We just need to get a sample of life with completely independent origin to our kind of life here on Earth, to study. This way we would be able to separate what are universal properties for any life from historical contingencies specific to us. To have samples of a single kind of life complicates things.
Were that to happen it could be the worst news humanity ever receives, since it would greatly increase the chance the "Great Filter" is in front of us, not behind us.