I suppose that means that in our search for potentially life-supporting exoplanets, we ought to place a higher priority on systems with large outer planets.

I don't know. I think we should gather as much data as possible without looking for conditions similar to earth. We have no idea how life can develop.

have you ever spent a lot of time sifting through any non-trivially large set of data looking for a pattern. Sometimes you need precepts to help you narrow your scope of attention. Like, when you go to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, the surest way of finding the needle is to take a "bottom up" approach and sift the entire haystack. Or, you could use your knowledge of where you last saw the needle and do a rough search there. Or in the hope that the needle is the right kind of metal you might try using a magnet. Each of these might prove fruitless if your assumptions don't hold but they have a high probability vs their cost.

I don't think that's true. Jupiter is just as likely to sling objects that were going to miss earth directly towards earth as it is to sling a directed to earth object away. For objects that end up landing on Jupiter, if you think that has a significant impact on Earth, you're underestimating how huge and empty the solar system is.

It is a real theory, and people have done the simulations to demonstrate its effects: https://www.space.com/31577-earth-life-jupiter-saturn-giant-...

There's an entire period of time where Earth was continuously hit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment

Seeing that little "Life timeline" chart on the right has got me wishing for a time lapse of that evolution. Would be truly amazing to see that...