My Motl sure got carried away. A relatively short article by Ethan Siegel requires a huge article to rebut it line by line. He seems to be totally dedicated to String Theory. He reacts to any suggestion that String Theory might not be right as if it was an attack on his god. It is kind of like a religious authority (RA) who has had some small part of his belief system questioned. An RA in that condition will respond to a small question with an impassioned sermon about the absolute correctness of his/her belief. A brief statement to address the question is not deemed to be sufficient. For example consider the Catholic Churche's response to Martin Luther's questions about Church doctrine.
Then of course he completely denies that any of the other areas of investigation into a theory of Quantum Gravity have any value. This seems to be in complete disagreement with what I have been seeing more and more often. That a scientist should always entertain the idea that she/he might be wrong. A real scientist should always doubt her/his beliefs. If he/she doesn't look for things that would disprove what she/he knows to be right then he/she can easily lead her/him self down the wrong path. I'm afraid a lot of String Theorists have fallen down in this respect. Of course the fact that string theorists seem to have gotten a lock on the physics departments of many American universities can lead to this sort of an attitude. It doesn't leave much place for other ideas to be considered.
Bill Gill
