Richard Dawkins admits the possibility of intelligent design... by aliens

gosseyn:

What he is basically saying is that perhaps life has been planted on our planet by an advanced species of extraterrestrials...

Of course, it is possible that we ourselves are the product of 'intelligent design' by a far more advanced species of intelligence, or even maybe that they tweaked our DNA to quicken the pace of our evolution? Unfortunately, they have obviously neglected to include tweaking our mindsets to a more mature wisdom, because we still have billions around the planet stuck in the religious superstitions which are affecting the lives of everybody.

I couldn't careless what a person believes in, just as long as their belief or faith in whatever ancient nonsense does not impact upon me in any way. If religion and religionists did not impact upon me, I might respect it more, but as things stand...it does, by making the world I have to share with them a cesspool of chaos and instability. There is no 'intelligent design' by a so-called supreme deity in the context of any holy book or faith...that in itself is an oxymoron, and is also entirely and utterly ludicrous!.

Why would they create humans unless they are themselves some kind of humans at a different stage of evolution?

For an advanced species, the goal would not be to simply promote physical excellence, but more importantly, mental and psychological advancement to bring about a high grade of sentient intelligence that would respect all forms of objective existence. An advanced species would have left faith-based superstitions behind way back in its evolutionary past. No species would survive long enough to an advanced stage where it could leave its planetary home while they were inherent in its mindset.

Perhaps, each race of our species is a particular contribution of various alien species (having worked in concert to seed the planet to agreed principles and rules), modelled not too far from the race of 'alien' that designed its evolutionary path?

Why humans? Well, it takes more than a body to be human, that is just a third of our make up, there's the other two-thirds of mental and psychological evolution. The body evolves to adapt to the environment, but the most important aspect for humanity's survival is it's mindset, because every thing we do, all the actions we take (including non-actions) stem from our minds. Until we advance enough in that particular aspect, we will never come to discover the truth of our origins. Simply because we just won't make the sufficient grade to be included as a bona fide participant in the great universal family.