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Can someone explain to me why life forms based on different elements would be so crazy? I must have missed the science class that taught why the difference would be such a big deal. Would iron-based life forms be incorporeal colossi that glow electric blue or something rad, or is it just “oh their DNA strands would have different atoms”.
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Well, they wouldn't have DNA, for one thing. The probability of a non-related creature having deoxyribonucleic acid
(totally just guessed the spelling of the correctly) as its information carrier is vanishingly low. A seperately evolved creature would have to solve the process of breeding, passing on information, etc in a different way.
As for Iron, the problem is that it doesn't form long chain molecules like Carbon does. And almost every significant structure in your body is made up of a long chain of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen (sometimes with some other stuff as well, but C, H and O are the building blocks). I believe that it's more likely that we'll find a Silicon-based life form because it's more chemically similar to Carbon. But the fact is that given the relative abundance of the elements in the universe and their chemical properties, it's highly likely that non-terrestrial species would also be Carbon-based.
EDIT: Also this.