As far as I understand (not being a mathematician/physicist), it's a unification framework rather than one theory. As a framework, it's not right or wrong, but

As far as I understand (not being a mathematician/physicist), it's a unification framework rather than one theory. As a framework, it's not right or wrong, but can be fertile or infertile (akin to what philosophy is to logic, string theory would be to physics). If a (the?) TOE is found among string theories, the approach would have been fertile. String theories are not quite like religion in that they are falsifiable, just usually not falsifiable within current technical possibilities. This experiment in the OP falsified one of the lower energy possibilities. With this in mind, though, it may be more useful to support research closer to applied fields. That is, if public money is supporting the string theory industry, a cut in that direction would be appropriate.