How is this the only game in town?

O'Leary over at UD found an incredibly telling journal publication New Scientist:

Its (the cosmological constant) discovery was a huge blow. Up till then, physicists had hoped that some ultimate theory would deduce the values of fundamental constants of nature from first principles, including the cosmological constant, and explain why the laws of physics are as they are, just right for the formation of stars and galaxies and possibly the emergence of life. This seems not to be the case. Nothing in string theory, or indeed any other theory in physics, can predict the observed value of the cosmological constant.
However, if our universe is part of a multiverse then we can ascribe the value of the cosmological constant to an accident. The same goes for other aspects of our universe, such as the mass of the electron. The idea is simply that each universe's laws of physics and fundamental constants are randomly determined, and we just happen to live in one where these are suited for life. "If not for the multiverse, you would have these unsolved problems at every corner," says Linde.

What is also interesting is that the inflation that Linde proposes still requires fine tuning prior to inflation, and it is the only model which Hawking does not consider to be absolutely dead as a scientific theory. In any case, continuing on to the point of O'Leary's post:

“If it turns out to be positively curved, we’d be very confused. That would be a setback for these ideas, no question about it.” Until any such setback the smart money will remain with the multiverse and string theory. “It has the best chance of anything we know to be right,” Weinberg says of string theory. “There’s an old joke about a gambler playing a game of poker,” he adds. “His friend says, ‘Don’t you know this game is crooked, and you are bound to lose?’ The gambler says, ‘Yes, but what can I do, it’s the only game in town.’ We don’t know if we are bound to lose, but even if we suspect we may, it is the only game in town.”

Why is this the only game in town? I love this logic. "We are probably wrong, about there being multiverses, but it's better than nothing." In reality it is not the only game in town. Maybe the universe looks designed because it is designed. At what point did this cease to be a possibility??? Either way, O'Leary makes a strong point. Is this how science is supposed to be done?

I think ideological bias is apparent here. The question to me seems that how many more solid blows can the ideological forces attempting to silence ID advocates take before they lose their grip alltogether? Even Francis Collins and others are now advocating ID under other terms now. Their "Biologos" theory makes use of Cosmological ID and serves as a different name for "Theistic Evolution" to an extent. It is however, an explicitly theistic position, and Collins defends the idea that Fine Tuning, and interestingly, the argument from Morality. (see here) I think the deathgrip on science is slipping.

I see change on the horizon.