I cannot evaluate the merits of string theory- It seemed promising at first, it has lately seemed so ambiguous as to be useless. That doesnt mean it is useless, or that it wont actually explain basic aspects of the universe.

There have been times where good science and mathematics have been used by by people that were human to come up with conclusions that in the end are very wrong. Usually these mistakes are due to ignorance of facts that havent been discovered yet.

Before Fusion was known to humanity lots of silly ideas were proposed to explain the power of the sun... : http://nobelprize.org/physics/articles/fusion/sun_1.html

We understand the basic rules, and we are starting to know some of the advanced rules- but we still dont have a full understanding of the game.

The danger comes when you persue a dead end and become so devoted to the study of that dead end that you waste time looking for a secret passage out of it instead of saying 'well this is a dead end time to go back and try another route'....

The problem is that sometimes there is that secret hidden door, if you find it you uncover great things. So when a scientist hits a dead end there is often a temptation to keep exploring it... It boils down to intuition, education, and guts.

A 'dead end' presents a devils bargain. Either you give up and try another safer route, or you persist (and probably fail) to find a new route, with great rewards in the unlikely event you succeed. The key is to know how to tell when you REALLY are in a dead end, even then there is no guarentee that the next scientist wont find something you missed.

The rational safe approach is to turn back knowing that the odds are it is a dead end with nothing to find. But we are human, we gamble and we buy lottery tickets- we take risks. So some will persue dead ends in the hope that they get lucky. That is how great discoveries are made.

Doing science well takes devotion and some guts- rarely are great things discovered without taking risks. So to wind this overly long post up- Either the brilliant people studying String theory are exploring a dead end and thus educating us as to where not to look in the future, or they are on the way to discovering something revolutionary- it is too early to know. Either way useful things are likely to come from the struggle.

P.S. Michio Kaku is a media whore that has no problem spreading absolute lies as long as he gets press. The hack USED the public's fear of radiation to try to scuttle the Cassini mission... I watched that BASTARD lie through his teeth about that mission... He is NOT a scientist at all, he is a self promoting whore first... Take what that he says witha TON of salt!