Hmmm, interesting conversation this and sure to heat up.
This may be worth considering. We have ONE lab experiment running here... planet earth. That lab has had the living crap, (no pun intended), belted out of it for thousands of millions of years. Its been frozen, fried, blasted, radiated and recycled so many times it doesn't worth mentioning... and yet! We can't even count the number of species that exist here, and are constantly amazed by the diversity of environments and the resilience that life has shown in them.
So, if earth can do it, and there are probably countless trillions of other "labs" out there, then the answer to the, "Is there life out there question", is a no brainer.
Still waiting for the intelligence bit though.... Maybe they are all around our solar system saying, "Shhhh, if we stay quiet long enough, maybe they'll evolve or die off..."
