The Unraveling of String Theory?

Ever since I was an undergraduate, superstring theory has made me uneasy philosophically. Green,Schwartz,Witten came out in 1987 (I was a junior), and I remember discussing with classmates and professors my concerns that "physics was still an experimental science." The results of the theory are probably mathematically valid (although the lack of rigor with which some results are obtained would probably bring tears to the eyes of most mathematicians). However, I question the validity (as physics). The field has always seemed to me to be an exercise in mathematics, pursued with little or no concern regarding its possible relation to experimental proof. As the field currently stands, it isn't even experimentalists or the experimental equipment that are the limiting factor. It is the theory itself that cannot even be formulated in a way that allows it to be applied to the universe around us.

With the recent publication of Not Even Wrong by Peter Woit and The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin, this point of view is starting to be debated among top physicists (sometimes rudely so as in the blog wars between Woit and Harvard's Lubos Motl) and this month even made the pages of Time magazine.

Now, it seems [to critics], at least some superstring advocates are ready to abandon the essential definition of science itself on the basis that string theory is too important to be hampered by old-fashioned notions of experimental proof.

The story does seem a little one-sided in that the opinions of physicists who support string theory are never solicited (it's sad that the media screw up basic things like this even when political bias is not a consideration). However Motl's hysterical response describing the article as a "dirty, immoral, dishonest, and anti-scientific enterprise" seems extreme. What ever happened to logical scientific debate? I find his review of Smolin's book on Amazon particularly incoherent, as he calls it "a post-modern diatribe" and illogically claims that Smolin posits that "it is wrong for mathematics to play a crucial role in theoretical physics." He isn't helping his side in the debate with his idiocy.

[I attempted to add a trackback to this post from Motl's blog, but because I just transferred my own blog to the beta version of Blogger I am unable to do so at this time.]