I question your ability to evaluate the scientific worth of F@H's research output. And if F@H isn't doing "real science" than what is it doing?
I think the DC projects have an obligation to provide independent scientific evaluations of their projects to ensure they are not taking advantage of their participants. The DC community is 99% about stat-whoring, team vs team, "I can crunch faster than you can". Very few people bother to ask where their higher electricity bill is going, and compare this cost to donating the dollars to projects and charities that clearly save lives Right Now, rather than just offering vague promise.
People are not nearly skeptical enough when it comes to signing up to distributed computing projects and nobody asks the project leaders hard questions. Show me a single external analysis of why Folding @ Home is the best use for umpty-million kilowatts of (greenhouse gas producing) power capacity? There are none! All they have to do is think up banner advert slogans such as "finding a cure one PC at a time" and people jump for the "feel good" without checking closely what the project does. $10 a month of electricity could sponsor the education of a child in africa, or be donated to a vaccination program that can immunize kids against smallpox for $1 a shot!
I don't think it is the obligation of the (evidently few) skeptics to prove folding is overstating the science that it is doing, it is the obligation of the program to justify to the community, and in a deep manner, why they deserve research dollars more than other worthy programs. I've read the entire folding site and they fail to offer any cost benefit analysis. They don't even discuss the costs of the compute array, the assumption (at the least, implied) is that this distributed folding computation is somehow "free"! At least for the PS3 array this is absolutely not the case. If you're not playing a game, you can turn off 250 watts of power, but not if you want to be part of folding.
I've asked over email several biochemists and drug company scientists (a cousin doing post-grad internship got access to them late last year) and none of them were aware of any new drug developments made possible by protein folding projects and bear in mind there are 100s of drug and vaccine developments made every week around the world. When I see the sloganeering and rah-rah of the DC folding participants in forums and team promotion sites it seems to me that they tell each other they are saving people from cancer, finding cures for the incurable. So few grasp the project, and know how much it costs them in dollar terms (to say nothing of greenhouse gases), and what other more widely understandable charities might benefit from their cash.
Of course if people don't actually care about real science, or saving lives, if DC club participation is mainly about competition over ranks and stats, then good luck to them. Perhaps the project should be marketed differently: Join a folding @ home team, show off your rig.
Would be nice if the 'wait for remote play' feature were compatible with this! Then I could leave the PS3 on during the day doing folding work and take it over with my PSP remotely for other stuff when I need to (for instance to show off to my colleagues)