> Don't the "best" models make surprising predictions that we go out of our way to design experiments to collect data for - and find that they are, in fact, accurate?
Models like e.g. the heliocentric solar system, or even relativity, weren't developed that way - they were developed by noticing flaws or incompatibilities in existing models, and proposing a better explanation for them. (The much-touted "experimental verification" of relativity in an eclipse was a nonsense - the errors were as large as the measurements - but it didn't matter; the theory was elegant enough to be obviously correct).
String theory is mostly still at the fiddling-with-the-epicycles-and-thought-experiments stage. But at least it has a model that contains a) standard QM and b) a graviton. None of the competition has even got that far (and there's little reason to think they ever will in most cases).
Models like e.g. the heliocentric solar system, or even relativity, weren't developed that way - they were developed by noticing flaws or incompatibilities in existing models, and proposing a better explanation for them. (The much-touted "experimental verification" of relativity in an eclipse was a nonsense - the errors were as large as the measurements - but it didn't matter; the theory was elegant enough to be obviously correct).
String theory is mostly still at the fiddling-with-the-epicycles-and-thought-experiments stage. But at least it has a model that contains a) standard QM and b) a graviton. None of the competition has even got that far (and there's little reason to think they ever will in most cases).