I actually find it hard to imagine the model of science that some people seem to have is supposed to work, where, apparently, you are supposed to never look at

I actually find it hard to imagine the model of science that some people seem to have is supposed to work, where, apparently, you are supposed to never look at the real data already collected out in the world and somehow just come up with hypotheses to be tested from... uhh... err... nothing, apparently, because looking at pre-existing data is somehow cheating, and, what else is there? The "standard model" of science that seems to be embedded in the heads of the Greater Internet Commetariat is pretty ludicrously nonsensical in a number of places.