I think that unnecessarily discounts exploratory work. There's nothing wrong with forming a hypothesis after seeing a pattern in data. But remember that it's ju

I think that unnecessarily discounts exploratory work. There's nothing wrong with forming a hypothesis after seeing a pattern in data. But remember that it's just a hypothesis -- an unconfirmed guess. After the hypothesis is formulated, then an experiment can be designed to test it, see if its predictions hold up.