[cogman10]

> Because it's not binary, the hypothesis / theory language doesn't convey a particularly useful distinction.

I don't think we agree here. The distinction between a theory and a hypothesis is fairly binary. Theories have supporting evidence; hypothesis either have no evidence or so little evidence that they need further investigation.

But I would agree that the general understanding of the words is such that no useful distinction is made by using one or the other. I bristle a little at it, though, because the word "theory" is often used by scientific critics because they conflate "theory" with "guess". In fact, for general communication I would rather an article like above use "guess" instead of "theorized" as it's both simpler language and it doesn't trigger this sort of conversation.