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I think the comparison to EM or GR is pretty much absurd. For one thing it’s comparing two completely different things: tests of a particular prediction of a theory (EM or GR) that made lots of other testable, confirmed predictions to the case of string theory, where there are no predictions at all. More relevant to the argument over how long to wait for an idea to pay off is that the real question is not the absolute value of the amount of progress, but the derivative: as you study the idea more carefully, do you get closer to testable progress or farther away? I don’t think anybody can serious claim that, 33 years on, we’re closer to a successful string theory unification proposal than we were at the start, back in 1985. I’d argue that the situation is the complete opposite: we have been steadily moving away from such success (and thus entered the realm of failure).

The problems string theory are attempting to answer are many magnitudes more complicated than general relativity and electromagnetism and hence require tests many magnitudes more precise and complicated. It's possible such tests may never be developed and that there may be many competing theories of everything with no way to ever ascertain which one is correct.

New theories take not just decades, but centuries to develop. There was at least a three-hundred year gap between the development of Newtonian gravity and general relativity. Much of string theory is only a couple decades old. If physicists and mathematicians decide that string theory is untenable, they will gradually abandon it, similar to how in capitalism products become obsoleted in favor of newer, better ones. There is no need for someone to determine which theories are worth pursuing or or not; the ‘marketplace’ of ideas does that automatically, gradually nudging the natural progression of research towards better ideas as old ones are discarded or modified. For example, 120 years ago aether theories were conjectured the propagation of light and gravitation, but these theories were later were supplanted by special relativity.

http://greyenlightenment.com/falsifiability-string-theory-an... String Theory succeeds because it offers a means that is logically consistent to bridge gravity and quantum mechanics, and the strings themselves are building blocks for all particles. If someone can come up with a logically consistent theory that is as encompassing as string theory and can be tested and verified with existing technology, the physics community is all ears.

The tyranny of verificationism impedes scientific progress. Let string theorists do their thing/string.

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