In its strongest version, panspermia holds that intelligent life can only descend from prior intelligent life. Logically, therefore, intelligent life must have always existed, and what we have called evolutionary progress would actually be the local development of pre-existing, highly evolved life. I am attempting to name it Cosmic Ancestry. It responds to the informed criticism that Darwinism does not account for evolutionary progress. Furthermore, Cosmic Ancestry does not extend science beyond its proper realm.
Intelligent life appears to have always existed.
Until evolutionary progress in a closed system is demonstrated, that s as far as science can pursue the matter. Meanwhile, creationists are free to call intelligent life a miracle. Dissolving the disagreement between science and religion, we can turn to new questions. A reply from Damon Lisch deals with transposons in the germ line. D.S. McKay, et al.