a consensus? I was quite amazed by the latest posting in "Not Even Wrong."
For the first time in quite a while, both ends of the theoretical physics spectrum agree on something: Gregg Easterbrook is an ignoramus and a moron.
And it shows. http://www.slate.com/id/2149598/
This isn't the first time he's come out against physics, either. See excerpts from one of his previous articles here: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/001258.html
The amazing thing is that these articles don't just attack string theory; they attack ALL OF PHYSICS. He greatly enjoys the word "mumbo-jumbo" and uses it so many times that you can tell his originality is severely lacking. Perhaps the worst thing about these articles is that he attacks physics because HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IT. None of it makes any sense to him. How did he ever become a science writer, anyway?
Theories of black holes are untestable, he implies, therefore they must be flawed. He doesn't like how physical theories are counterintuitive. Well, guess what... even beginning physics is counterintuitive. Intuition would tell you that something exerts a force on something else, but that something else doesn't push back. Intuition is very wrong in this case. Never mind action at a distance, particle-antiparticle annihilations, etc., etc.
It's very sad that so many science writers know so little. But ignorance can be overcome more easily than overt hatred.
"Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity" is a book that really shows the dark side of science journalism. David Bodanis evidently doesn't know much about electricity; the most complex illustrations of electricity deal with electrons moving rapidly through wires, or electrons being portrayed as bits that get ripped off solid, ball bearing-like atoms. These are very poor illustrations; massive streams of electrons don't shoot through wires, anyway (they move from atom to atom, and the drift speed of an electron is much smaller than the speed of light). And the concept of electrons getting plucked off hard atoms isn't even the right HISTORICAL concept of electricity, anyway. In most of the book, Bodanis tries to make the scientists who studied electricity look like total jerks. Some of them weren't exactly the most agreeable people, but when you read that Thomas Edison was "a creep and a liar", you know that you're reading a very biased, out-of-mainstream-opinion book.
Off-topic: There are many, many repetitions in "Electric Universe" of a line that goes something like this: "Without electricity, there would be no telephones, no radios, no televisions, no Internet, no CD's or DVD players, no phonographs, no light bulbs, no computers. Why, without electricity, life, the earth, or even this book would not exist." WOW.
I gave "Electric Universe" as an example because it's one of the worst examples of shoddy scientific journalism. I'm afraid that we'll see a lot more of this garbage in the next few years.  ¶ 7:16 PM