I think asking the question "is there life outside of earth," is silly.
Why are humans so great? What is so special about our galaxy, our star, planet etc that we could consider that we're the only ones here?
The way I see it, is that life requires special conditions to grow. Earth met those conditions and it was only random chance that A) took it this far and B) even happened in the first place.
So is there life outside of earth? Yes, definately so, I think.
Do they look like what we think? Most probably not. I wonder what kind of genetic changes would happen if life adapted to completely foreign materials, or a planet lacking in certain aspects from our own.
Fuckin'... flying octopie.