What I meant is that, given a hypothesis that is not currently testable or falsifiable, we cannot use current scientific knowledge to prove that it will never be testable or falsifiable.
To your point, the way I wrote it above, it sounds like I believe nothing can ever be tested or falsified. Obviously we have tested and falsified many hypotheses.
I'm glad you clarified, because I was getting distressed at the idea of someone so eloquent thinking something so crazy.
To clarify a bit myself though, remember that we're talking about something for which the standards of "testable" and "falsifiable" often just mean, "even in some thought experiment." For example people predicting collisions with another universe have a pretty wild hypothesis, but they proposed some ways to explore that idea involving studying the CMB background.
When we're talking about the anthropic principle as a hypothetical foundation for a complete understanding of physics though... there's really no room even in theory for testing or falsifying that notion. That's what was being hated, and the hate of which I'm in support.
I can think of two hypotheses that can't currently be ruled out:
1) We're living in a computer simulation of a universe, which was built and operated for our benefit by some unknown intelligence(s).
2) Our universe is just one of an infinitely many universes, each of which has slightly different values for the physical constants. Our universe seems well-suited to our life because of selection bias--in the universes not suited to life, there is no life to observe that fact.
These both relate to various formulations of the anthropic principle. The principle itself can't be used to prove the correctness of one or the other. But it's possible that we will find some experiment in the future that will allow us to test one or the other.
I think that's why those concepts are entertained by a large number of people in the scientific community, over drinks at least. Of course, if someone tried to get serious funding to study it, right now, there might be a different reaction.
What I meant is that, given a hypothesis that is not currently testable or falsifiable, we cannot use current scientific knowledge to prove that it will never be testable or falsifiable.
To your point, the way I wrote it above, it sounds like I believe nothing can ever be tested or falsified. Obviously we have tested and falsified many hypotheses.