[shadowgovt]

I think the most fascinating thing about the practice of science (and this is one of those things I wish I'd realized sooner when learning physics) is that experimental evidence often outstrips theory.

There are all manner of observable, reproducible behaviors in nature that we barely have an explanation of. Those things remain observable and reproducible whether we can tell a tidy story about why they happen.

In a very meaningful sense, the local healer applying poultices formulated from generations of experimentation is using science much as the medical doctor is (assuming, of course, they're taking notes, passing on the discoveries, and the results are reproducible). The doctor having tied their results to the "germ theory of medicine" vs. the local healer having tied theirs to "the Earth Mother's energies impregnate the wound" is an irrelevant distinction until (and unless) a need comes along to unify the theory to some other observable outcomes.

[atombender]

That's true for simple things. You don't need to know what the pharmacological mechanism of COX inhibitors is in order to prescribe Advil for a headache. But if you're a scientist trying to make a better Advil you probably need to know how it works.

Doctors routinely prescribe medications that have no randomized clinical trials supporting their use. In those cases, clinical experience replaces trial data; they "know" the drugs work because all the patients have effectively been trial subject over a span of decades.