Yeah, that's always been my impression as well. Whenever I bring that up to the people I know who are big proponents of the theory, I always hear "Well you just don't understand it!". Physicists love to create matematical logic trains that become so complicated only a math expert can follow them. While internally consistent for the most part, they have no relationship to any observed phenomina. String theory itself relies on a thing called a "sparticle", which no one has ever seen, no one has ever seen any effects of, and nobody has ever been able to prove a number of things surrounding the whole idea of them.
While math is clearly hugely important, I find it depressing that some of these guys get grants to basically sit around and write up math formulas so long and complicated that the people giving them those grants can't possibly figure out they're paying for something totally useless. Maybe that's the plan?
"Regret can only change the future" -Me
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." Frank Herbert, Dune 1965
