I would also add that sometimes the facts can lead you to abstractions that you wouldn’t think about otherwise. As an example, consider quantum physics. Countless philosophers have spend years contemplating the nature of reality and writing books on the topic. Yet I am pretty sure that without experimental data, the hypothesis “maybe it’s somehow related to the squares of absolute values of complex numbers” would simply never appear on their radar.
Thank you for writing this!
I would also add that sometimes the facts can lead you to abstractions that you wouldn’t think about otherwise. As an example, consider quantum physics. Countless philosophers have spend years contemplating the nature of reality and writing books on the topic. Yet I am pretty sure that without experimental data, the hypothesis “maybe it’s somehow related to the squares of absolute values of complex numbers” would simply never appear on their radar.