Why would it be surprising to find bacteria next door? If life is common in the universe, this would be exactly what you’d expect. And there is plenty of reason to think life is common in the universe.
> Why would it be surprising to find bacteria next door?
No one said it would be surprising (though it would to a great many people), the point is that it would require a LOT of assumptions about how life develops to get us to that point whereas human ignorance is the sole assumption we need to make to assume that these measurements are not life-related.
I think life is everywhere in the universe and that we will find that it descends along a great many entropic pathways in a great many frames of reference. But I also believe any given hint of life is more likely than not going to be related to human error, only because we have so many assumptions we need to make until we understand the underlying processes better.
