"Hypothesis" and "theory" are scientific jargon for different degrees of confidence and integration into extant theoretical frameworks. But hey, Bayes, Popper,

"Hypothesis" and "theory" are scientific jargon for different degrees of confidence and integration into extant theoretical frameworks. But hey, Bayes, Popper, Lakatos. I mean, get off it. "Theory" means something in "critical theory", something else in formal logic, etc. etc. There's nothing to say that applied scientist's uneasiness with tentative conclusions should dictate natural language. You don't want to be misinterpreted, you don't leak to the press before it's been in a few peer-reviewed journals.