[nu23]

Reasoning from basic principles is a valuable tool to evaluate conclusions. Sure, it has strong weaknesses (hidden assumptions which are wrong, insufficient imagination about what could happen, rationalizing one's biases). But it is useful, when you dont have complete trust in the quality or the scope of the experiment. For instance, claims about quantum computing solving NP complete problems are legitimately held in doubt because of theoretical reasons. Also, whenever there are short term positives hiding a long term negative, like say unsustainable financial or ecological behavior, the negatives might be only seen by a chain of reasoning and not by direct experiments.

I agree in the sense that we see so many cases in the other direction - reasoning full of holes being trusted over empirics. The interesting thing is in any given situation, how much trust to give to the different tools that we have to evaluate a claim.