How significant would the discovery of life on Mars be?

An interesting little story on the SFGATE.com site:

 

The rover Curiosity recently found that, in the distant past of Mars, conditions were entirely suitable to microbial life as we know it. This increases the likelihood that life once might have existed there.

The question is, would it be a big deal?

Interestingly, Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center in California, says it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, even if it could be shown that life on Earth and Mars developed independently.

That is, in the early days of the solar system, more material in the form of comets and asteroids was flying around than now, so that the source of life for both planets could have been the same. Thus there could be the discovery of Earth-like life on Mars, or something completely new, a second genesis.

But even that, McKay says, probably wouldn’t move the public meter. Here’s what he told Live Science:

Life evolving twice in the same solar system would suggest that life is common throughout the universe, McKay explained. Such a discovery would be huge for biologists, who would suddenly have an entirely new type of biology to study.
McKay doesn’t envision any major shifts in philosophy among the public in response to such a discovery, though. The discovery of microorganisms on another planet wouldn’t necessarily spur the need to re-evaluate humanity’s place in the universe, for example.
“I would put it along the lines of the discovery of the Higgs boson,” McKay said, referring to the particle theorized to explain where other particles get their mass. “It would be that sort of level of event. It would be out in the public and people would be like, ‘Oh, wow,’ but mostly it would be something that scientists would get into.”

I just flatly disagree. I don’t think the discovery of a second source of life would cause an immediate shifts in philosophy, but I do believe it would be a much bigger deal than the Higgs.

The Higgs boson was unquestionably a huge discovery and achievement for physicists, but I contend that it barely made a splash in the public conscience because it’s an extremely difficult concept to understand, and its implications for society are wholly unclear. (Well I can understand that most people wouldn't understand the Higgs Field, since most people have no understanding of physics)

I think the discovery of a second genesis on Mars would create much more discussion and public interest. People understand life. They can debate the philosophical and theological implications of life evolving elsewhere. They can discuss what this means about the likelihood of life existing elsewhere in the universe.

While it would be a step short of a visit by intelligent aliens, the discovery of original life evolving in Mars would, in my opinion, be the astrobiological discovery of our lifetimes.