Yeah, as I say, it's easy to be derisive about string theory and string theorists. (Lubos makes it especially easy.) And, physics departments find string theorists to be the cheapest kind of hire, because they aren't always trying to get expensive equipment together for experiments.
But everybody who goes into string theory had to learn all of "real" physics first, and excel at it well enough to get into a PhD program. A lot of them must have a hankering to do real physics, like their heroes who inspired them into the field, and must be frustrated at not finding any way to do it from where they are.
Being clever people, if they can use the maths they have to suggest directions for things to try, they might make themselves useful. If the things they suggest turn out to guide reasoning toward something that will be tested, that is worth something even if the formalism the suggestions came from isn't correct in detail.
> And, physics departments find string theorists to be the cheapest kind of hire, because they aren't always trying to get expensive equipment together for experiments.
You know the joke - a university was having budget problems, so they fired the physicists and replaced them with mathematicians, who only need paper, pencil, and a wastebin. Then they had more budget problems, so they fired the mathematicians and replaced them with philosophers, who don't need the wastebin.
But everybody who goes into string theory had to learn all of "real" physics first, and excel at it well enough to get into a PhD program. A lot of them must have a hankering to do real physics, like their heroes who inspired them into the field, and must be frustrated at not finding any way to do it from where they are.
Being clever people, if they can use the maths they have to suggest directions for things to try, they might make themselves useful. If the things they suggest turn out to guide reasoning toward something that will be tested, that is worth something even if the formalism the suggestions came from isn't correct in detail.