Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no a priori reason why a bunch of meatbags would have the ability to test all laws of physics of this universe. I think we may have gotten lucky for a while there. String theory is so far out there that a new methodology has been developed, namely using beauty or symmetry or Occam's Razor to choose between competing theories. None of these have the pedigree of empiricism, but they may also not be wrong. I ho…
Occam's razor is perfectly empirical: "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity". It's what people repeatedly accuse string theory of violating in low-rent popsci criticism. The other things you refer to are still Occam's razor: symmetry is handy because it eliminates symmetry-breaking entities even though we know they can happen in the standard model (Higgs) and "beauty" is really just another way of saying…
Re: The string theory hype machine will never die
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