I'm not sure it works either, but it's more sensible that Strings for a number of reasons. On the other hand, it is quite possible that String theory describes an effective theory of Quantum Gravity. Lee Smolin spent a considerable amount of time trying to study the connection between Strings and loops: both have 1D fundamental excitations.

The point is, we know what's wrong with our current theories, and we have two theories that seem mathematically consistent but which (in completely different ways) are not complete and fail to make contact with experiment.

Experimentally, we haven't even detected a classical gravitational vawe, and we pretend we're going to be able to decide between competing candidates for a theory of quantum gravity?

If the LHC finds supersimetric particles, the String theory crowd will call that a successful prediction of the theory, when there are loads of extension of the Standard model that also include supersymmetry. If supersymmetric particles are not found, string theory is dead... or maybe they'll just pust the "expected" mass of the lightest supersymmetric particle just above the attainable limit, as they have been doing for 30 years.

In the long run, we're all misquoted — not Keynes