An article of interest on the dogmatic approach to science that is sometimes found.
http://www.nyas.org/publications/UpdateUnbound.asp?UpdateID=41
"I think the problem is not string theory, per se. It goes deeper, to a whole methodology and style of research. The great physicists of the beginning of the 20th century—Einstein, Bohr, Mach, Boltzmann, Poincare, Schrodinger, Heisenberg—thought of theoretical physics as a philosophical endeavor. They were motivated by philosophical problems, and they often discussed their scientific problems in the light of a philosophical tradition in which they were at home. For them, calculations were secondary to a deepening of their conceptual understanding of nature.
After the success of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, this philosophical way of doing theoretical physics gradually lost out to a more pragmatic, hard-nosed style of research. This is not because all the philosophical problems were solved: to the contrary, quantum theory introduced new philosophical issues, and the resulting controversy has yet to be settled. But the fact that no amount of philosophical argument settled the debate about quantum theory went some way to discrediting the philosophical thinkers. It was felt that while a philosophical approach may have been necessary to invent quantum theory and relativity, thereafter the need was for physicists who could work pragmatically, ignore the foundational problems, accept quantum mechanics as given, and go on to use it. Those who either had no misgivings about quantum theory or were able to put their misgivings to one side were able in the next decades to make many advances all over physics, chemistry, and astronomy.
The shift to a more pragmatic approach to physics was completed when the center of gravity of physics moved to the United States in the 1940s. Feynman, Dyson, Gell-Mann, and Oppenheimer were aware of the unsolved foundational problems, but they taught a style of research in which reflection on them had no place in research.
By the time I studied physics in the 1970s, the transition was complete. When we students raised questions about foundational issues, we were told that no one understood them, but it was not productive to think about that. “Shut up and calculate,” was the mantra."
and
"Those theorists who feel that theories should be background-independent tend to be more philosophical, more in thetradition of Einstein. The pursuit of background-independent approaches to quantum gravity has been pursued by such philosophically sophisticated scientists as John Baez, Chris Isham, Fotini Markopoulou, Carlo Rovelli, and Raphael Sorkin, who are sometimes even invited to speak at philosophy conferences. This is not surprising, because the debate between those who think space has a fixed structure and those who think of it as a network of dynamical relationships goes back to the disputes between Newton and his contemporary, the philosopher Leibniz.
Meanwhile, many of those who continue to reject Einstein’s legacy and work with background-dependent theories are particle physicists who are carrying on the pragmatic, “shut-up-and calculate” legacy in which they were trained. If they hesitate to embrace the lesson of general relativity that space and time are dynamical, it may be because this is a shift that requires some amount of critical reflection in a more philosophical mode.
Thus, I suspect that the crisis is a result of having ignored foundational issues. If this is true, the problems of quantum gravity and unification can only be solved by returning to the older style of research."
