Again with the patronising tone
It seems that this is really just another speculative opinion from you.
First of all, "looking for something sceptically" is probably the lesser of two evils, given that any signs of life might be difficult to verify from the outset. This is alot different from assuming that scientists don't look and aren't looking. As I said, the search on Mars dispproves it for starters. Scientists have not been averse to the idea that Europa may possibly harbour some sort of life. Even SETI shows that the idea of thinking about and searching for such things is not some sort of no-no within science.
But, of course, if you can actually prove that 'no scientist is going to be the first to announce the discovery of alien life because of the flack from his/her peers', please demonstrate where you have discerned this outlook and opnion from scientific literature, etc. (but not other opinionated websites please).