The good news: philosophy is still worth bashing.
The bad news we get bashed with clichéd prose: Steven Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow claim that "philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge." (The Grand Design, p. 5; John Leslie's review called my attention to it.TLS, 12/10/2010, p.3) [In some other contexts, I call this kind of rhetoric, "Newton's Challenge." [a revised version of this will appear in first issue of HOPOS.])
Erik Curiel has already provided the needed counterblast "Against the Excesses of Quantum Gravity: A Plea for Modesty" Philosophy of Science 2001, 68(s1):S424—S441.
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