A very thought-provoking essay by Marcelo Gleiser, which I think, is primarily aimed at theoretical physicists and their models of our world. In fact, I think it is a very sharp criticism of string theorists.
The one aspect that isn't clearly mentioned in the essay is the role of empirical verification. While there is a mentioned of the CP violation that "... crushed the symmetries that we have hoped for... ", this really is a direct outcome of an unexpected experimental discovery, not out of some theoretical predictions. This lack of empirical observation is the reason why String Theory is a myriad of many (infinite?) different theories and models that no one can select. It lacks any experiment that can falsify one over the other.
So maybe the problem isn't the holding on to the old "truth and beauty", but rather holding on to something that, for so long, can't be verified.
Zz.
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