With all due respect, for scientists the reading skills as exhibited here are certainly poor. I started off saying in post 257 that scientists have set agendas, just as everyone else does. Now people would like me to explain black holes, quantum tunneling, and continental drifts. Honestly.
If one would take the time to read my post, these are NOT my example in regards to continental drifts. Rather, they are references from the research of Thomas Kuhn and detailed in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions on scientific consensus and minority opinion. I cannot vouch for continental drifts nor have I read Dr. Kuhn's book. However, I'm sure Dr. Kuhn could provide you with further information if you believe him to be at odds with the scientific community. I would also recommend writing Wikipedia and have the reference pulled.
Dr. Kuhn seems to support my statement and I stand by that statement until scientifically proven otherwise.
There's no usage police for words like hypothesis and theory and law, except possibly among journal editors.
Problems arise when someone tries to argue from definitions. It just doesn't work. Scientists know the categories, even if they sometimes get sloppy in informal writing.
The simplest way of thinking about this is to accept that all categories of knowledge in science progress. There are no statements in science that are not susceptible to being replaced by more comprehensive statements.
Well Kuhn himself won't, because he's dead.
FWIW, I've spoken to a number of scientists who've read Kuhn's book, and I don't think I ever met one who thought much of it.