...of a raging trade deficit across the board. I'd wager that "immigrants sending money home" doesn't make up a significant part of the trade deficit at all. If you're really worried about the economy "bleeding money", then the trade deficit is what you ought to be taking a look at.
Enforcing immigration laws isn't going to work, and building a big fence is a waste of money. If you really want illegal immigrants to go away, stop using businesses that employ them.
If we have unenforceable laws (about anything, including immigration), then those laws need to be changed. So yes, economic means perhaps are the proper way to make illegal immigrants go away. However, thinking that they need to go away because they make the economy bleed is sloppy thinking. Not pulling their weight in the tax system OTOH is a good reason to think they need to go away (or become citizens, one way or the other).
This is not a meritless position. The state shouldn't tell anyone what to do about anything unless it has a DAMN good reason to. Not that there aren't damn good reasons for a lot of things, and perhaps there is a damn good reason for the state to mandate these light bulbs (although the amount of debate over it suggests that perhaps there isn't), but the default position of the state should always be "we aren't going to do anything about that at all."
I would assume that UbuntuDupe's reference to comfort is about his preference for the particular quality of light produced by incandescents over the particular quality of light produced by CFLs. In this case, which I think he made abundantly clear, it is quite obvious that switching lightbulbs would affect his comfort.
FWIW, Kronecker was a finitist, you might say the finitist, and as such, no one would seriously expect him not to object to Cantor's work, which is about as contrary to finitism as it gets. Wittgenstein is also noted for finitist leanings, if you will, although he denies being an actual finitist.
But a counter-threat "I'll get my lawyer involved on this if you continue to threaten me" might be quite effective. They know (unless they're stupider than most) that threatening you is wrong. Letting them know that you're willing to "tell the teacher on them" might just get them to stop.
Furthermore, you don't have to convince the police officer or the mayor of anything. You just need to have a lawyer that can convince a judge and/or a jury. Completely different matter.
I think you and your wife missed something fundamental from the GP. First, he did not talk about making complaints. Making complaints is a good idea, but sometimes it doesn't work, just as it did not work in your case. The GP mentioned lawsuits. These should certainly be reserved for cases in which the complaints fail, but if complaints have failed, especially as drastically as they did in your case, then lawsuits really are a very good option. Second, the GP said something about getting things changed yourself, with a little help from your friends. General public outcry is usually listened to by the government. One or two people are easy to either ignore or to shut up. You probably would have done better by getting friendly with your neighbors and getting them to also complain (or file suit). If your neighbors didn't have any problem with what was happening, then you would be best served by getting new neighbors, that is, moving.
Thanks. I may go and edit the QED entry on wikipedia to reflect that it is not the best tested theory anymore.
I did a bit of a doubletake there, because one of our grad students is named Martin, and I thought you might be him. (I say "one of our grad students" and it makes me sound like I'm a postdoc or a professor... I'm about to be a grad student.)
The rate at which cosmics strike not only the earth, but pretty much all other astronomical bodies at least in our own galaxy and likely in the entire universe, is staggering. The length of the experiment is also immense. These two things more than compensate for the fact that cosmic ray energies are much more spread out, the fact that some cosmics are not protons (as in the LHC), and the fact that the distribution of impact parameters (related to angle of impact) includes a larger proportion of larger impact parameters (less direct collisions).
I'm not sure of the actual rate of cosmic impacts with earth's atmosphere, but I would make the educated guess that it is immensely higher than the collision rate at LHC, simply because the surface area of the earth is large. Now divide that by the earth's surface area, and multiply it by the sum of the surface areas of all astronomical bodies. You get a collision rate that is just absolutely ridiculously huge. The LHC will run for a length of time on the order of a decade. Cosmics have been around for billions of years.
We have not looked for, and have therefore not observed, the creation of any micro black holes (too small to swallow the earth) in the earth's atmosphere. However, the simple fact that the earth has not yet been swallowed by a cosmic ray induced black hole is quite encouraging. Even more encouraging is the fact that the sky isn't just chock full of black holes. If we could reasonably expect that the LHC might create an earth swallowing black hole, then we would also expect most of the sky to be black holes.
As far as the math involved, it is not much more complicated than what I did above. Any proton-proton collision is just like any other proton-proton collision. The probability of producing some particular reaction when the center of mass energy is E is the same whether the collision occurs in the LHC or in the interstellar medium. So suppose the LHC in its entire runtime had a 0.01% chance of producing an earth swallowing black hole. Knowing (or rather estimating, since it hasn't run yet) the total integrated luminosity (a measure of how much colliding has been done, incorporating collision rate, number of particles in the accelerator at once, tightness of the beam, and running time), and the distribution of total center of mass (CM) energy in LHC collisions, we can figure out the probability that a given energy collision would produce an earth swallowing black hole (ESBH) per integrated luminosity. Then we can estimate the total integrated luminosity of cosmic rays in the universe, or even just in our galaxy, or even just on the earth, and we can estimate the CM energy distribution of cosmic ray collisions, and then we quite easily have an expected number of ESBHs produced on earth or in the galaxy, or in the universe. If this expected number doesn't really match up with the number that we observe (zero in the case of the earth), then we know that the chance of the LHC producing an ESBH is not actually 0.01%. Just on some really rough educated guessing, I'd say that any non-negligible chance at the LHC results in a ridiculously huge expected number of black holes, much more than we actually see.
dyslexia.. because that one ACTUALLY IS A DISORDER and is older than the "fad" of making everything a disorder
Hans Asperger did his work circa 1944. In 1981, work dealing with Asperger's observations was first published in English. In 1992, ICD-10 included Asperger's Syndrome. In 1994, DSM-IV included Asperger's Syndrome. [1]
Nothing properly called a "fad" lasts for 12 years, which is the shortest required duration for even one of these landmark dates in the history of Asperger's to fall within the "fad of making everything a disorder". Perhaps you are referring to something more long term than what most people would think of as a fad; if that is the case, my apologies for misunderstanding. If not, then Asperger's Syndrome clearly predates the "fad" you refer to as well.
[1] Wikipedia's page on Asperger Syndrome, History section.
It's called going stir crazy, or getting cabin fever. People don't do well psychologically when confined to a small space for an extended period of time.
Certainly QFT has passed some impressive tests. And if string theory predicts the same results of those tests, then it can really be considered to have passed them as well.
This has been validated to approximately one part in 10^18
Could you provide a reference for this? Perhaps something in the arXiv. I was under the impression that QED was the most precisely tested theory, and that only to one part in 10^12. One part in 10^18 is certainly an incredible achievement.
What I'm arguing is that unless they can come up with a harsh test
And I'm trying to get the idea across to you and everyone else that there are harsh tests, and they are being experimentally examined. Lorentz invariance and number of dimensions are the ones I keep harping on. There are others. Unitarity is one. Supersymmetry is another. Sufficiently high energy scattering can tell us whether what we are scattering is string-like or point-like. These are all harsh tests for the entire framework of all string theories.
Oh, and like I said before, Lorentz invariance does count as a harsh test. It is also a harsh test for all kinds of other things, like special relativity. It has been tested, but nothing is ever tested completely. As I tried to say before, but I don't think I said very well, Newtonian gravity was quite well tested, and passed every test, until somebody came up with some new tests of the same things that had been tested before, and it failed them.
"The Data Is As It Is" theory is the ultimate calibration model: when it's disproved, you update to "The Data Is As It Is" theory (new and improved with new data) that's the problem.
I guess I don't see the problem with that. That is science. That is refinement of hypotheses based on data. One day you have a theory. You get some new data. Now that theory is falsified, so you come up with a new theory. An instance of my example "The Data Is As It Is" fits that quite well.
Perhaps that is the problem. I have not been careful to distinguish between an instance of this example and the description itself. There are any number of theories which could be described as "The Data Is As It Is", depending upon the data at hand. However, that collection of theories is not itself a theory. Certainly you can never falsify the collection of theories, because it is not a theory itself, but merely a description. A particular instance, on the other hand, is dead easy to falsify and discard.
Now, I will say that I don't see any problem at all with discarding a theory, and replacing it with another theory which could be described in a similar fashion. I say similar and not identical, because a complete description of a theory is never identical to a complete description of another theory unless the two are the same theory.
Please also keep in mind that I have said that I don't think that my example is an example of good science. It is not good science because it is just as complex as (or perhaps more complex than) the data it is trying to describe and predict. Good science is simple (for a given definition of simple). The simpler the better. The less it takes you to completely specify your theory, coupled with its power to describe and predict, the better. My example is exceedingly complex, because it includes a complete specification of all the data to date.
What I'm describing is the system by which theories that people have are translated into something with currency well in the future. I would argue that most scientists are too close to the day in and day out process of being employed as a scientist to see it, but then again, most scientists contribute almost nothing that lasts even until the 80th anniversary of their birth.
Alright. Fair enough. Start describing it then. You seem to be claiming that you have seen "it", but you have not yet presented a clear picture of what you have seen. If you've really got something here, it would be very much worth my while to have it explained to me. What is this "system"? What makes one theory valued 80 years down the road and another theory not valued after 3? Oh, and by theory, do you mean a theoretical framework like QFT or string theory, or do you mean a specific instance of such a framework, like the standard model? One more question: if you've seen "it", why aren't you in the field, making theories that will last for 80 years?
"We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
but we tried to fight it"
Thanks, Billy.
Disclaimer: I am not a Republican, although in some ways I am rather conservative.
Then you must have heard of cosmic rays. Think about them for a little while, and then ask about the risk of black holes capable of swallowing the earth again.
Drat! I try to be particularly conscientious about using "data" as the plural it is. But this one slipped by me. Thanks for the correction.
The theory I was thinking of would more thoroughly be stated "If you do experiments just like the ones we did, same exact conditions, then your data will all come out looking exactly like ours. Furthermore, no other experiments could ever be done." This is clearly not a very good theory at all.
Lorentz invariance. Could very conceivably be observed to not hold. Especially since we haven't studied it yet at the high energies the LHC will give us. If Lorentz invariance fails at any energy, string theory (along with most 20th century physics) fails completely.
Number of dimensions. If we do extra dimension searches at LHC (and believe me, they will be done) and find that there are 7,342 dimensions, string theory will be ruled out. Interestingly, Quantum Field Theory will not.
These are two conceivable observations which would rule out string theory, and make string theorists give up on string theory. There are many others. The fact that they coincide with predictions from other theories (for the most part, the number of dimensions doesn't coincide simply because QFT doesn't nail down a number of dimensions) doesn't make them any less predictions.
The meter stick is like a 1-d object. Really it is 3d, but for the purposes of discussion, you might consider its width and height to be zero. Then you would have a real 1-d meter stick. However, that is not really necessary. Since it is much longer than it is wide or high, it is sufficiently like a 1-d object to illustrate what it needs to illustrate.
Two (your convention), "The Data Is As It Is" theory is the ultimate calibration model: when it's disproved, you update to "The Data Is As It Is" theory (new and improved with new data) that's the problem.
True, but once it is disproved, you do have to come up with a new theory. The framework still holds, but the instance of it is different. That's pretty much how science works.
To get the assumptions right, you may require just as many measurements as otherwise and then you're just pushing this data in the back door as modifying assumptions and pretending that you didn't need all these measurements to get them right.
Again, that sure sounds like science to me. Not the pretending you didn't need all these measurements, but the modification of hypotheses (or assumptions) based on data. Or did you think the Law of Universal Gravitation sprang fully formed from Newton's head without the extensive data gathering of Tycho Brahe and the analysis of Kepler? It turned out in that case that Newton really had all the data he needed before he started hypothesizing. But he still needed that data to form his hypotheses.
Quite frankly, if the fundamental assumptions of string theory need to be changed, then nobody pushes it under the rug and pretends it didn't happen. Maybe it looks that way outside the field, but not inside.
Again, testing the fundamental assumptions and rare predictions made by QFT is about as difficult as testing the assumptions and predictions of string theory. Testing the standard model OTOH is relatively easy. We don't have a string standard model yet.
Three (again...), That's the point. Relativity wasn't tested on Newtonian physics, it wasn't seriously arguable that there were problems there at very low relative speeds--the harsh tests had been performed. Same thing for Lorentz invariance. String theory needs to make a new prediction that previous theories disagree strongly with and then go to the lab.
So, backing up a couple centuries, suppose I came up with a theory which turned out to be exactly equivalent to the law of Universal Gravitation, but was an entirely different formulation. Just because Newton came up with his formulation first, that means mine isn't science? I think not. Even if no truly new predictions are made that differ from existing theories, we still might have a useful theory, and certainly one which is falsifiable. Doesn't matter that falsifying it would also falsify other things as well. It is still falsifiable, and therefore even your friend Karl would think it was science.
Besides, you really can't say "the harsh tests have been performed" at any real point in time. Things still need to be tested in finer and finer detail. That's why we haven't stopped looking at Lorentz invariance, or even Newton's laws. These things are still measured often, and it is especially important to measure them at higher energies as they become accessible. Universal gravitation had its harsh tests done. It described the solar system exceedingly well.
Well, half the point of science is that one can understand it with enough effort. But, as a corollary, it is fairly easy to say who does understand it and who doesn't.
Anyway, QuantumG is the one who claimed to be an amateur in the first place. He further claimed that his status as an amateur meant that I should not correct his misunderstandings. This is ridiculous. If he knows he doesn't understand things, then he shouldn't be posting them unless he is asking for clarification. If he does understand things (or at least thinks he does), then he ought to be open to discussion and correction. Either way what he actually said makes no sense.
That is precisely what I've been trying to explain. String theory is an entire family of theories, like Quantum Field Theory. QFT is just as moldable as string theory. The important thing for QFT is the Standard Model, which is a particular quantum theory of fields. We don't yet have any particular string theory (which describes our universe very well at all) which one would compare to the standard model. My point is, if you consider QFT science, then you ought to consider string theory science as well. If you consider string theory not to be science, then you can't really consider QFT science either.
I would further argue that there are in fact ways to falsify the entire framework of string theory, and that those measurements are in fact being done or attempted. One fairly simple test is Lorentz invariance, which string theory depends upon. We do check lorentz invariance on a regular basis, and such checks will very importantly be done at the new higher energies the LHC will allow us. Number of dimensions is another test. It is hard to rule out the possibility that there might be more dimensions than we have yet measured, but easy to rule out the possibility of fewer dimensions. So, if we do LED searches at the LHC and find evidence that there are 374 dimensions, string theory will be pretty much ruled out (although QFT certainly will not).
As I've noted before, I don't care for string theory, but I do think it is science.
I agree that it's absurd to call QFT and string theory not science,
I don't. I think it is absurd to call QFT science but not call string theory science. But I don't have any real problem calling both of them not science, because a consistent (and useful) definition of science is (probably) still obtainable then. A somewhat non-standard definition perhaps, but consistency is more important.
You can even get a physics degree (in some places) without needing to learn QFT.
Indeed, in most cases, QFT is a graduate level course. Vanilla QM, even perhaps some relativistic QM (dirac and klein-gordon) is usually undergraduate level, but QFT is usually not.
Slashdot Mirror
So would this ruling have prevented this story (from the slashdot hall of fame) from having happened?
If we have unenforceable laws (about anything, including immigration), then those laws need to be changed. So yes, economic means perhaps are the proper way to make illegal immigrants go away. However, thinking that they need to go away because they make the economy bleed is sloppy thinking. Not pulling their weight in the tax system OTOH is a good reason to think they need to go away (or become citizens, one way or the other).
I would assume that UbuntuDupe's reference to comfort is about his preference for the particular quality of light produced by incandescents over the particular quality of light produced by CFLs. In this case, which I think he made abundantly clear, it is quite obvious that switching lightbulbs would affect his comfort.
FWIW, Kronecker was a finitist, you might say the finitist, and as such, no one would seriously expect him not to object to Cantor's work, which is about as contrary to finitism as it gets. Wittgenstein is also noted for finitist leanings, if you will, although he denies being an actual finitist.
But a counter-threat "I'll get my lawyer involved on this if you continue to threaten me" might be quite effective. They know (unless they're stupider than most) that threatening you is wrong. Letting them know that you're willing to "tell the teacher on them" might just get them to stop.
Furthermore, you don't have to convince the police officer or the mayor of anything. You just need to have a lawyer that can convince a judge and/or a jury. Completely different matter.
I think you and your wife missed something fundamental from the GP. First, he did not talk about making complaints. Making complaints is a good idea, but sometimes it doesn't work, just as it did not work in your case. The GP mentioned lawsuits. These should certainly be reserved for cases in which the complaints fail, but if complaints have failed, especially as drastically as they did in your case, then lawsuits really are a very good option. Second, the GP said something about getting things changed yourself, with a little help from your friends. General public outcry is usually listened to by the government. One or two people are easy to either ignore or to shut up. You probably would have done better by getting friendly with your neighbors and getting them to also complain (or file suit). If your neighbors didn't have any problem with what was happening, then you would be best served by getting new neighbors, that is, moving.
I, for one, own the asteroid Ceres.
So long as that Stitch kid doesn't tag along. Man that thing is kinda creepy.
Thanks. I may go and edit the QED entry on wikipedia to reflect that it is not the best tested theory anymore.
I did a bit of a doubletake there, because one of our grad students is named Martin, and I thought you might be him. (I say "one of our grad students" and it makes me sound like I'm a postdoc or a professor... I'm about to be a grad student.)
Regards,
Jon
The rate at which cosmics strike not only the earth, but pretty much all other astronomical bodies at least in our own galaxy and likely in the entire universe, is staggering. The length of the experiment is also immense. These two things more than compensate for the fact that cosmic ray energies are much more spread out, the fact that some cosmics are not protons (as in the LHC), and the fact that the distribution of impact parameters (related to angle of impact) includes a larger proportion of larger impact parameters (less direct collisions).
I'm not sure of the actual rate of cosmic impacts with earth's atmosphere, but I would make the educated guess that it is immensely higher than the collision rate at LHC, simply because the surface area of the earth is large. Now divide that by the earth's surface area, and multiply it by the sum of the surface areas of all astronomical bodies. You get a collision rate that is just absolutely ridiculously huge. The LHC will run for a length of time on the order of a decade. Cosmics have been around for billions of years.
We have not looked for, and have therefore not observed, the creation of any micro black holes (too small to swallow the earth) in the earth's atmosphere. However, the simple fact that the earth has not yet been swallowed by a cosmic ray induced black hole is quite encouraging. Even more encouraging is the fact that the sky isn't just chock full of black holes. If we could reasonably expect that the LHC might create an earth swallowing black hole, then we would also expect most of the sky to be black holes.
As far as the math involved, it is not much more complicated than what I did above. Any proton-proton collision is just like any other proton-proton collision. The probability of producing some particular reaction when the center of mass energy is E is the same whether the collision occurs in the LHC or in the interstellar medium. So suppose the LHC in its entire runtime had a 0.01% chance of producing an earth swallowing black hole. Knowing (or rather estimating, since it hasn't run yet) the total integrated luminosity (a measure of how much colliding has been done, incorporating collision rate, number of particles in the accelerator at once, tightness of the beam, and running time), and the distribution of total center of mass (CM) energy in LHC collisions, we can figure out the probability that a given energy collision would produce an earth swallowing black hole (ESBH) per integrated luminosity. Then we can estimate the total integrated luminosity of cosmic rays in the universe, or even just in our galaxy, or even just on the earth, and we can estimate the CM energy distribution of cosmic ray collisions, and then we quite easily have an expected number of ESBHs produced on earth or in the galaxy, or in the universe. If this expected number doesn't really match up with the number that we observe (zero in the case of the earth), then we know that the chance of the LHC producing an ESBH is not actually 0.01%. Just on some really rough educated guessing, I'd say that any non-negligible chance at the LHC results in a ridiculously huge expected number of black holes, much more than we actually see.
Nothing properly called a "fad" lasts for 12 years, which is the shortest required duration for even one of these landmark dates in the history of Asperger's to fall within the "fad of making everything a disorder". Perhaps you are referring to something more long term than what most people would think of as a fad; if that is the case, my apologies for misunderstanding. If not, then Asperger's Syndrome clearly predates the "fad" you refer to as well.
[1] Wikipedia's page on Asperger Syndrome, History section.
It's called going stir crazy, or getting cabin fever. People don't do well psychologically when confined to a small space for an extended period of time.
Could you provide a reference for this? Perhaps something in the arXiv. I was under the impression that QED was the most precisely tested theory, and that only to one part in 10^12. One part in 10^18 is certainly an incredible achievement.
Oh, and like I said before, Lorentz invariance does count as a harsh test. It is also a harsh test for all kinds of other things, like special relativity. It has been tested, but nothing is ever tested completely. As I tried to say before, but I don't think I said very well, Newtonian gravity was quite well tested, and passed every test, until somebody came up with some new tests of the same things that had been tested before, and it failed them.
I guess I don't see the problem with that. That is science. That is refinement of hypotheses based on data. One day you have a theory. You get some new data. Now that theory is falsified, so you come up with a new theory. An instance of my example "The Data Is As It Is" fits that quite well.
Perhaps that is the problem. I have not been careful to distinguish between an instance of this example and the description itself. There are any number of theories which could be described as "The Data Is As It Is", depending upon the data at hand. However, that collection of theories is not itself a theory. Certainly you can never falsify the collection of theories, because it is not a theory itself, but merely a description. A particular instance, on the other hand, is dead easy to falsify and discard.
Now, I will say that I don't see any problem at all with discarding a theory, and replacing it with another theory which could be described in a similar fashion. I say similar and not identical, because a complete description of a theory is never identical to a complete description of another theory unless the two are the same theory.
Please also keep in mind that I have said that I don't think that my example is an example of good science. It is not good science because it is just as complex as (or perhaps more complex than) the data it is trying to describe and predict. Good science is simple (for a given definition of simple). The simpler the better. The less it takes you to completely specify your theory, coupled with its power to describe and predict, the better. My example is exceedingly complex, because it includes a complete specification of all the data to date.
Alright. Fair enough. Start describing it then. You seem to be claiming that you have seen "it", but you have not yet presented a clear picture of what you have seen. If you've really got something here, it would be very much worth my while to have it explained to me. What is this "system"? What makes one theory valued 80 years down the road and another theory not valued after 3? Oh, and by theory, do you mean a theoretical framework like QFT or string theory, or do you mean a specific instance of such a framework, like the standard model? One more question: if you've seen "it", why aren't you in the field, making theories that will last for 80 years?
"We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
but we tried to fight it"
Thanks, Billy.
Disclaimer: I am not a Republican, although in some ways I am rather conservative.
Drat! I try to be particularly conscientious about using "data" as the plural it is. But this one slipped by me. Thanks for the correction.
The theory I was thinking of would more thoroughly be stated "If you do experiments just like the ones we did, same exact conditions, then your data will all come out looking exactly like ours. Furthermore, no other experiments could ever be done." This is clearly not a very good theory at all.
You must have been misinformed.
Lorentz invariance. Could very conceivably be observed to not hold. Especially since we haven't studied it yet at the high energies the LHC will give us. If Lorentz invariance fails at any energy, string theory (along with most 20th century physics) fails completely.
Number of dimensions. If we do extra dimension searches at LHC (and believe me, they will be done) and find that there are 7,342 dimensions, string theory will be ruled out. Interestingly, Quantum Field Theory will not.
These are two conceivable observations which would rule out string theory, and make string theorists give up on string theory. There are many others. The fact that they coincide with predictions from other theories (for the most part, the number of dimensions doesn't coincide simply because QFT doesn't nail down a number of dimensions) doesn't make them any less predictions.
The meter stick is like a 1-d object. Really it is 3d, but for the purposes of discussion, you might consider its width and height to be zero. Then you would have a real 1-d meter stick. However, that is not really necessary. Since it is much longer than it is wide or high, it is sufficiently like a 1-d object to illustrate what it needs to illustrate.
Again, that sure sounds like science to me. Not the pretending you didn't need all these measurements, but the modification of hypotheses (or assumptions) based on data. Or did you think the Law of Universal Gravitation sprang fully formed from Newton's head without the extensive data gathering of Tycho Brahe and the analysis of Kepler? It turned out in that case that Newton really had all the data he needed before he started hypothesizing. But he still needed that data to form his hypotheses.
Quite frankly, if the fundamental assumptions of string theory need to be changed, then nobody pushes it under the rug and pretends it didn't happen. Maybe it looks that way outside the field, but not inside.
Again, testing the fundamental assumptions and rare predictions made by QFT is about as difficult as testing the assumptions and predictions of string theory. Testing the standard model OTOH is relatively easy. We don't have a string standard model yet.
So, backing up a couple centuries, suppose I came up with a theory which turned out to be exactly equivalent to the law of Universal Gravitation, but was an entirely different formulation. Just because Newton came up with his formulation first, that means mine isn't science? I think not. Even if no truly new predictions are made that differ from existing theories, we still might have a useful theory, and certainly one which is falsifiable. Doesn't matter that falsifying it would also falsify other things as well. It is still falsifiable, and therefore even your friend Karl would think it was science.
Besides, you really can't say "the harsh tests have been performed" at any real point in time. Things still need to be tested in finer and finer detail. That's why we haven't stopped looking at Lorentz invariance, or even Newton's laws. These things are still measured often, and it is especially important to measure them at higher energies as they become accessible. Universal gravitation had its harsh tests done. It described the solar system exceedingly well.
Well, half the point of science is that one can understand it with enough effort. But, as a corollary, it is fairly easy to say who does understand it and who doesn't.
Anyway, QuantumG is the one who claimed to be an amateur in the first place. He further claimed that his status as an amateur meant that I should not correct his misunderstandings. This is ridiculous. If he knows he doesn't understand things, then he shouldn't be posting them unless he is asking for clarification. If he does understand things (or at least thinks he does), then he ought to be open to discussion and correction. Either way what he actually said makes no sense.
That is precisely what I've been trying to explain. String theory is an entire family of theories, like Quantum Field Theory. QFT is just as moldable as string theory. The important thing for QFT is the Standard Model, which is a particular quantum theory of fields. We don't yet have any particular string theory (which describes our universe very well at all) which one would compare to the standard model. My point is, if you consider QFT science, then you ought to consider string theory science as well. If you consider string theory not to be science, then you can't really consider QFT science either.
I would further argue that there are in fact ways to falsify the entire framework of string theory, and that those measurements are in fact being done or attempted. One fairly simple test is Lorentz invariance, which string theory depends upon. We do check lorentz invariance on a regular basis, and such checks will very importantly be done at the new higher energies the LHC will allow us. Number of dimensions is another test. It is hard to rule out the possibility that there might be more dimensions than we have yet measured, but easy to rule out the possibility of fewer dimensions. So, if we do LED searches at the LHC and find evidence that there are 374 dimensions, string theory will be pretty much ruled out (although QFT certainly will not).
As I've noted before, I don't care for string theory, but I do think it is science.
Indeed, in most cases, QFT is a graduate level course. Vanilla QM, even perhaps some relativistic QM (dirac and klein-gordon) is usually undergraduate level, but QFT is usually not.