If the objective is to obliterate us, they don't even need to invade. A relativistic warhead fired from another star system would do the trick. Any invasion scenario implies that they would at least want to keep the biosphere in a habitable condition. Which presents some opportunity for guerrilla tactics.

The technology needed for space travel would not be the same for all worlds and all species. Imagine a species that evolved on a Titan-like moon. Low gravity means that they could put large payloads into orbit with less energy. If they had a longer lifespan than humans or a natural means of suspended animation, then interstellar distances are not so insurmountable.

In fact, a race of space-faring tardigrades from a low-gravity moon sounds like a good start for a novel.

Bioinformatics has already standardized on open source tools (R, MySQL, Python). We weren't not buying anything that Wolfram might try to sell.

Even if you start a successful company in a particular field does not mean you have insight into where that field is headed.

Might depend on the strain of e. coli, but sure, why not? Especially if the water is otherwise sterile and I don't have to drink it all at once.

Let's say commercial drones becomes common technology. How do they tell which drones are being flow by licensed operators and which ones aren't?

Maybe they could require registration for commercially purchased drones. But what stops me from building a drone in my garage and zipping it around the neighborhood?

The concept of a Alcubierre drive requires negative energy density. It doesn't show that FTL is possible it just substitutes one impossible idea another impossible idea.

There is a potential userbase for augmented reality devices. But what those potential users expect is an full field of vision display that responds to head & eye movement in real time. A smart phone monocle just isn't going to cut it.

Care to name some countries that have better television? Particularly historical documentaries.

The God in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is a physical being that is physically seen by the people like Moses. He communicates with people and performs miracles to prove his existence and power. Strangely, he is not omniscient and not all powerful. There are several times when God is tricked, negotiated with, shown to have incomplete knowledge or had his power overcome. The Bible is also clear that other gods exist and they do have power, but God of Abraham is simply the most powerful.

The Bible is kind of a crazy book that has very little to do with what's taught modern Churches. You really should read it some time.

Your statement just is empirically incorrect. The 20th century was the largest increase in human population AND the greatest increase in overall standard of living. We might someday reach the point where exhausting resources starts to diminish standard of living, but it hasn't happened yet.

Your hypothetical higher being is interesting, but completely different than the "God" described in the Bible and most other religious works. That's half the problem with these arguments: as soon as science reaches a point where it really can disprove "God", the believers change their definition to something more obscure and intangible. You are now describing something so abstract that its completely meaningless either way.

Not necessarily. Reducing the space program could mean more money for other research topics. NASA budget is twice that of the NSF. Does it really make sense to spend twice as much on space research as all other non-medical sciences combined?

Generally speaking modernity in Europe is considered to be about the mid 15th century to the present day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... Two the countries you name didn't even exist until the modern era. Try again.

Wanderers are different than explorers. Nomadic people follow established cycles in known locations. Trading with the village in the next valley over is different than sailing into the unknown. Moving between established cities is different than spending trillions of dollars to hurdle a person through the void of space to a dead rock that's inhospitable to life in every conceivable way.