I hate to speak up and be labled by you Mal as a personal enemy and hater of science* but I've got to agree with RoS and probably others who are remaining silent on this (more wisely so than myself).
* of which I'm
not either but you seem to be going to extremes of late
I too didn't see this as any attack, personal or anti-science, previous possible (I don't recall) bias or not on Aramis' part. It read to me as simply an attempt to put it into layman's terms.
To borrow your own breakdown method:
"Sci-speak" - Admit it, science does employ a jargon, most professions do, and the words do not always fit the layman's vocabulary. Hypothesis is one of those words.
"Is Armamis' definition a dictionary definition" - Pretty close really, but he was aiming for a layman's definition. My handiest dictionary has this as one definition (bracket notes mine) "An assumption (synonym of conjecture) or assumptions provisionally accepted (survived peer review, fits the available data), especially as a basis for further investigation (and is worthy of testing)." Really quite spot on to Aramis' I'd say.
"Conjecture? No, a hypothesis is not a conjecture at all" - Yes. Conjecture, another synonym of Hypothesis. A hypothesis IS conjecture.
"Worthy of testing" - You yourself use "worth testing" in the very sentence you deny Aramis the use of "worth" testing as a measure of a hypothesis. Put it this way: A hypothesis that is found to fail tests is not worth further tests. One that has passed tests is worth further tests, if for no other reason than to independantly validate the other tests. That's peer review isn't it.
And finally...
Put all that together, along with Aramis' previously demonstrated hostility towards the scientific method and the knowledge acquired by it, and the way he phrased the whole thing as if it were fact rather than his opinion or interpretation of fact (which it obviously is) and it's not surprising that I took it as an "anti-science statement". His one sentence is riddled with inaccuracy and opinion, stated as fact when it's not."
Disregard previously demonstrated hostility (again I just don't recall it and can't say there was or wasn't), there is none implied or specific in that statement taken at face value. Neither does it seem phrased as fact rather than opinion in that light. And it is not riddled with with inaccuracy as I've shown.
It is easy to see you took it, incorrectly I think, as anti-science and even personally, based largely if not solely on prejudice developed from previous encounters, which to my mind is not very open minded. Understandable sure, forgivable certainly, even expected to a degree. It's still not that acceptable when you go on about it and respond with personal attacks. Yes personal attacks. At least to the mind of a few, including the one they were directed to. You don't seem to see it though, and yet I get the strong feeling you felt personally attacked by Aramis' statement where I don't see it.
I'm worried for your calm friend, and your continued good presence here on CotI. You need to take a step back, a deep breath, and count to 10 after some of these "trigger posts" I've seen you reply to here lately. They aren't really out to get you or science as much as you seem to imagine. Not that I've seen here lately at least. Out there elsewhere, daily in the news, and in a now defunct forum here, yes. There are ignorant savages that Darwinism should have culled ages ago but for the fact that science keeps saving them in spite of themselves, because that's how science works. That's one of the ironies of life that I detest and yet still find amusing. I pray to God that science wins the tussle and eventually finds a permanent cure for them all.*
* just more irony, so thickly knotted you might need Alexander himself to cut through it
Well, I've taken this far enough off topic. If it's drifted into the realm of "here there be MODERATORS" who devour such posts whole or snack on bits of them then so be it. I'm just trying to help.
To post or not to post? Tough question. Obvious answer though not swiftly reached. Hope it was the right one...