The difference between hard science

[Moridin]

By "testability", I meant "ability to make empirical prediction that can be confirmed or refuted". Falsifiability seems to be (implicitly) included in this definition of testability, which avoids all the unnecessary pitfalls, such as the fact that negative attacks on a theory (say, evolution) can be refuted is the same as saying that another perspective (say, ID) is a scientific theory.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

String theory allows us to calculate virtually anything particle physics measures, and more. The question raised is "which version of string theory should I use ?". If we could point to the exact vacuum we need, we would have enormous progress. Right now, there is just too vast a choice, and any observation would probably be consistent with many versions of string theory.

That still doesn't make it a theory, to be a theory it would need experimental proof in and of itself, ie strings detectable, or harmonics, or you would need a substantial amount of evidence that the effects of x are caused by said theory and not other reasons.

Until that happens it is still a hypothesis, albeit a strong one.

I'm sorry but you don't get special dispensation from scientific method because you have kung-fu/ninja maths skills. Doesn't work like that.

 

[humanino]

That still doesn't make it a theory, to be a theory it would need experimental proof in and of itself, ie strings detectable, or harmonics, or you would need a substantial amount of evidence that the effects of x are caused by said theory and not other reasons.

I think we agree. I used to word "theory" when I referred to "string theory" without realizing that it conflicts with your arguments, which I know only too well

I'm sorry but you don't get special dispensation from scientific method because you have kung-fu/ninja maths skills. Doesn't work like that.

I do not claim having such skills, but I would like to have kung-fu/ninja martial art ones

Look, let us imagine the following scenario for one second. Loop quantum gravity is essentially correct. A spinfoam-twistor-non-commutative geometry, call it Penrose-Connes model, will finally provide us a complete unified theory. String theory was just a toy-model, and never real-world-model. We must still reconginze that, without string theory, it would have taken us much more time to reach the Penrose-Connes model. Even more, most probably the Penrose-Connes model can be considered as one of those string toys !

In the end, what is the point with this soft/hard science ? Even though I agree with the list proposed, they are not more than qualitative, where to put such and such is also a matter of taste until a theory goes to your top or bottom item. Anything in between, for physics at least, is work in progress. Should work in progress not be communicated to a vast public ?

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Then we are agreed, String theory is a sound and rigorous hypothesis and I do not underestimate it's merit to science, only it's definition as a theory which we agree to disagree on.

I actually quite like LQG and dare I say it RQM. They are a bit more likely to be testable from what I hear.