And yet this sounds a lot like what ID proponents say about the design hypothesis. It may also start to sounds like pseudoscience (not meant as a pejorative, just descriptive) if the distance between the hypothesis and the testability continues.
Yes, but when the theorists press on without experiments in sight, it can lead to moving towards philosophy, in my opinion. I’m not saying they shouldn’t press forward, but I think it does mean they need to be a bit more cautious about they way the present work to the public at least. It is tempting to leverage experimental and scientific expertise into a “trust me” on things that stretch the idea of being a product of science rather than philosophical musings.
I would agree with both statements. My point was not to say that physicists are wrong or shouldn’t keep after those most intriguing questions. My point is that science begins to lose credibility when theorists get too far ahead of experimentalists. I think to the extent that we can’t even envision an experiment that would distinguish between two completely different hypotheses, I think we leave the scientific and are instead in the philosophical. What I see as problematic is when we don’t acknowledge that transition and act as if it’s all just “science”. When we favor the Copenhagen interpretation of QM because “that’s the way I was taught” or the Multi-worlds interpretation because “I like the idea of a deterministic universe better”, it seems to me we’ve left science.