String Theory: Science or Philosophy

Whoa whoa whoa.
The Theory of Relativity is one the most well-tested theories in physics. I have never heard of the theory failing ONE test that it has come up against. Who knows, maybe Gravity Probe B will find something that will pose a problem for relativity, but chances are slim.String "Theory" is not much more than math right now.
For the very brief period before the first experiment that tested relativity, that's all relatvity was, math and gedanken experiments.So, is math a science? Well, the study of math can be done scientifically, but a mere equation or set of equations is not "science."I think that mathematical theories are called theories when they are mathematically consistent, etc, not really when they've been tested physically. When that does happen it can be a physical theory.But really they need to stop calling it String Theory for the time being and call it what it is, The String Model.

String Theorists Finally Admit Defeat | Not Even Wrong From what I gather this page is a joke.
I doubt seriously that Witten would have made the biology comment.
I could be wrong, but I'm sure this isn't real.

You mean does it ever have the capability of being tested?
Yes.With enough energy you could probe finer and finer scales.
But, I think I read that the first chance will come in the next generation of super-colliders. The superconducting supercollider WOULD have been nice, but they'll have to wait for the large hadron collider to come online next year or so.I think one of the first tests will be to see if there is some energy "missing" from particular reactions. String theory predicts that among certain reactions some of the energy will be dispersed into the compacted dimensions. Supposedly we won't be able to detect it and the missing energy would indicate that it might have gone into these compacted dimensions somehow.Something tells me that it might turn into the search for the Higgs boson. We didn't find it at THIS energy, so we have to wait for the next big collider and look for it at higher energies, and so on.NOVA | The Elegant Universe | Joe Lykken | PBS

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Lykken: In the particle detector what you will see from this collision will look like a jet of high-energy particles, and then you'll see that there is nothing balancing the energy and momentum of that very high-energy jet. There was something there, a high-energy graviton, but it disappeared into the extra dimensions. We see a very high-energy jet of particles going in one direction and nothing balancing it off in the other direction. That's what we call a missing energy signature. That's the kind of thing where we jump up and down and say, "This could be extra dimensions."

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Here's a 2000 article referring to another collider that people had hoped would see the missing energy. I guess it rules out millimeter-sized compacted dimensions.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000219/bob1.aspSome others:
CERN Courier - reporting on international high-energy physics
http://www.sciencewatch.com/...001/sw_july-aug2001_page4.htmExtra dimensions might explain "dark" stuff:
Astronomy News - Space Science - Articles and ImagesAnother possible test:
http://library.thinkquest.org/...ysics/recentdiscoveries.htm

quote:

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A Way of Testing the String Theory

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Although string theory is quite difficult to prove as result of the miniscule size of the strings themselves, researchers are now trying to determine the existence of strings by examining the gravitational imprints that have resulted from the birth of the universe and current gravitational waves. These physicists are relying on the data collected by their three-step experiment with stages entitled LIGO I, LIGO II, and the satellite LISA. Despite the fact that gravitational waves have never been collected or detected before, physicists are hoping that this extensive experiment will pick up gravitational waves. They believe that cosmic strings crack and then release gravitational waves, which can potentially be detected by LIGO. There are many other facets to this detailed experiment, and physicists are hoping to find clues that will help convince the scientific community and the public about the validity of string theory.

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ooooo, cosmic strings....