Lex, please stop apologising for contemplating a perfectly obvious and intelligent consideration. If Newton, Maxwell, Darwin, Einstien, or a dozen others I could name, paid heed to the sceptics, we could very well still be living in the conditions of the dark ages!   There's a "lot" of intelligent life out there, we just arent it - yet!   In a hundred years, if we're still here, those generations "will" look back at us and wince, just as some of us do when we look at the history books.