[rhybrisee]

Dark energy is pretty widely accepted given that we've basically measured the fact that (a) the universe is expanding and (b) the rate at which the universe is expanding is increasing. The cosmological constant has been recently independently measured by two groups looking at type Ia supernovae across the universe, which follow a well-understood mechanism for producing the same peak luminosities as each other.

I also do not believe that most physicists are skeptical of string theory. There is a lot of work to do, and there is still the small matter of determining whether it all actually has any connection to the real world (i.e. we cannot verify or observe the consequences), but there is a lot of potential and a lot of interesting stuff has already come out of string theory. String theory was all the rage in the late 90s and since then things have tapered off because I guess the feeling is that it has failed to describe everything in the universe, but this really is still the forefront of physics and cosmology and stuff.