On the origin of life...

Why is it that anytime even a *hint* of a drop of water is found anywhere else in space there are loud cries of 'Life!' to accompany it? Is it anything to do with research budgets?

The latest example spotted by NASA is Enceladus, a tiny moon orbiting Saturn.  Let's be fair though, if they're right then this is more than just a drop - its a whole subterranean ocean.  The BBC report has the following quote:

"We need three ingredients for life, as far as we know - liquid water, energy and the basic chemical building blocks - and we seem to have all three at Enceladus, including some fairly complex organic molecules," commented John Spencer, a Cassini scientist from the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

Now don't get me wrong, this is an exciting find, but the one thing that has been learnt in the study of abiogenesis so far is that it is far from straightforward.  The search is still on for how to get to 'first base'  and gather all the necessary basic ingredients.  A very recent suggestion is Titan, another one of Saturn's satellites.  It has an atmosphere made from Nitrogen and Methane giving traces of other simple organic compounds.  So maybe the basic chemicals were synthesized there and came to Earth on the No 42 meteorite?

I'm not saying a natural mechanism for life's origin will never be found but if it is I'll wager it will be very intricate, very coincidental and very unlikely... almost to the point of being unbelievable.