[andreasvc]

The direction is not the opposite for science. In Popper's philosophy of science, you form a theory beforehand and specify how it can be falsified, only then you do the experiment. Otherwise you could obtain some data and provide an ad-hoc explanation, without knowing whether it really explains anything. It's related to the Texas sharpshooters fallacy, where you shoot a gun and only afterwards draw the bull's eye around your shots. Of course practice differs from this ideal, you do get inspired to make certain theories by data (context of discovery), but to make a proper theory you need to make predictions and specify what would disprove the theory (context of justification).

[Evbn]

You can't just discard observation-based hypothesis generation as irrelevant. It is a key part of the process.

[andreasvc]

I don't, I say it's part of the context of discovery (the way you come up with new hypotheses). On the other hand, you can't overlook the problem of induction, pure empiricism doesn't work. You need some theoretical framework before you can try to verify your hypotheses.