Because you say so?

If you tell me you come from Cleveland, I'm going to believe you. If you tell me you come from Ceres, I'm going to demand proof, and a driver's license with the word CERES written on it in crayon won't hack it.

No one acts they way you claim. People accept commonplace claims without question and demand evidence for questionable claims, and demand extreme evidence for extraordinary claims like, "I am the Son of God", or "Life after death exists", or "Intelligent technological aliens exist and are operating extensively in our solar system."

> string theory

Not in any way comparable.

If string theory doesn't work out, we don't actually have a strong candidate theory to replace it, which is why we have spent so long on it.

But we have perfectly good theory on "technological aliens exist and are operating extensively in our solar system": the theory is "No, that isn't so."

The idea that string theory is some sort of bullshit PR scam is really annoying - you can probably tell I don't like it - and the worst is I only hear it from people with little or no scientific background.

String theory doesn't seem to be working out, but honest, hard-working people spent their lives on it because it seemed like a good bet at the time, not because of your PR conspiracy theories.

Even before the pandemic, I never liked the "science is a conspiracy" people, and now I like you a lot less.