You are partially referring to a theory called "Directed Panspermia". It was put forth by Francis Crick about 30 years ago. It goes like this: Life originated somewhere and intelligent life evolved. They were "lonely". They packaged several types of microbes into spacecraft realizing that they couldn't go themselves. Whenever that space craft found an appropriate planet it dropped a packet of seeds ("spermia"). They grew and evolved into --- "Us". The time is there and the possibility is real. Is is a "good" theory? Probably not, but neither supported nor unsupported. It puts off the "abiogenesis" problem for Earth, but it doesn't say where it happened, only that maybe somewhere else conditions were more ideal than Earth. I don't look down on Crick fore this, he is just stating another idea. (He's dead now so, I guess he can't answer the question as to whether he really believes it - 30 years ago he told me it was partially a joke, but..... wink wink)
Maybe we should teach this in school too. Scientists love to play these mind games - it helps them to be more innovative in their thinking. Nothing is tossed out without thorough examination and even discarded ideas sometimes enjoy a new life if conditions warrant.
Exactly. I don't think ID (in the non-human sense) is something that can be proved or disproved at present. I don't even consider it anti-Darwinian, thinking of it as something that would happen parallel with Darwinian evolution.
The problem is that the possibility of ID adds the possibility of divine interaction with science. Science is supposed to steer clear of religious matters. Problem is, if there is, shall we say, supernatural interaction with the world, then science cannot be pure of such matters.
I'm not approaching this as a scientist (to which I hear a loud, "You're telling me!"). I'm approaching this as someone who is trying to get to the big picture that includes science. You can have an ideal that "This is science. This is religion. And never the twain shall meet."
But neither science nor religion seems to be the big picture to me. And I do not feel obliged, in my personal philosophical quest, to keep the two entirely separated. Indeed, every instinct tells me that I can't.
And if ID is true, science may not be able to, as well.