Wishful thinking and really hoping your hypothesis is true are all a part of scientific process, otherwise no one would bother. The Wright brothers wishfully thought they could make a machine fly, and made it happen. And though scientists may hope their hypothesis is true, it is scientific to test it anyway and that is where scientific method comes in. Whether or not wishful thinking and hope are present is irrelevant to the discussion. If you can see that an honest attempt at testing the hypothesis is being made, then science is happening no matter how wildly improbable the hypothesis may seem to be.
After all, flying machines, continental drift, the germ theory, the constant nature of the speed of light and the fact that bats can magically avoid bullets (radar) were all once considered wild hypotheses. Discarding a hypothesis because it seems improbable isn't science. Testing it is. And that is the difference between scoftics and sceptics, too...it has to do with thinking about the processes taken, not about simply mocking at and tossing out the hypothesis.