Panspermia
In an 2018 article published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 33 coauthors from both the physical and biological sciences present a case for why life we should stop pidgeon holing us into a Darwinian worldview where all life evolved on this planet, and instead consider a model where life could have come to earth from other worlds. In their words:
Our aim here is to facilitate further discussion in the biophysical, biomedical and evolutionary science com- munities to the quite different H-W “Cosmic” origins viewpoint which better handles, in our opinion, a wider range of physical, astrophysical, biological and biophysical facts often quite inexplicable, if not contradictory, under the dominant Terrestrial neo- Darwinian paradigm.
In section 13, they cite the evolution of the octopus as a compelling reason to believe that not all life on earth evolved from other life on earth.
Two other quotes from the essay:
However the genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great, akin to the extreme fea- tures seen across many genera and species noted in Eldridge-Gould punctuated equilibria patterns (below). Its large brain and sophis- ticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, flexible bodies, instan- taneous camouflage via the ability to switch colour and shape are just a few of the striking features that appear suddenly on the evolutionary scene. The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral Nautilus (e.g. Nautilus pompilius) to the com- mon Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) to Squid (Loligo vulgaris) to the common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris, Fig. 5) are not easily to be found in any pre-existing life form e it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant “future” in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large. Such an extraterrestrial origin as an explanation of emergence of course runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm.
and about a half-column later:
This is a virtual qualitative jump in molecular genetic strategy in a supposed smooth and incremental evolutionary lineage - a type of sudden “great leap forward”. Unless all the new genes expressed in the squid/octopus lineages arose from simple mutations of existing genes in either the squid or in other organisms sharing the same habitat, there is surely no way by which this large qualitative transition in A-to-I mRNA editing can be explained by conventional neo-Darwinian processes, even if horizontal gene transfer is allowed. One plausible explanation, in our view, is that the new genes are likely new extraterrestrial imports to Earth - most plausibly as an already coherent group of functioning genes within (say) cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized Octopus eggs.
I believe that when God created, He left his “signature” on His creation. This signature was a sign that could not be counterfeited or explained by any other method. Octopus did not evolve on earth. God placed them here and made them wonderfully unique from their nearest “cousin” the cuddlefish.