[Symmetry]

I've recently liked the metaphor of science as a four stroke engine.

Unstructured observations -> hypotheses -> structured observations (experiments) -> confirmed hypotheses.

I think that unstructured observations of new phenomenon doesn't get enough credit in general, thought some fields seem to be all phenomenology and little theorizing. But in most it's hard to write grants for unstructured observation of a phenomenon and you have to pretend to be doing some specific experiment to get the experience necessary to be putting forward real hypotheses.