I think the whole problem is that people think experiments are less important than they really are. I agree with the idea of doing experiments to test a theory.

I think the whole problem is that people think experiments are less important than they really are. I agree with the idea of doing experiments to test a theory. This is in general. It applies in any field. I've tutored people in how to do an experiment. They believed an experiment had failed when in reality they had learnt something useful. The experiment really fails when you learnt nothing, didn't get any useful result and it didn't help to confirm or deny anything. An inconclusive result is actually a signal that the experiment needs to be done better somehow - not that the experiment was a failure. Science gets taught badly as some kind of dogma when experimental process is not understood. Plenty of people don't understand that the core of science is taking the position of not knowing why, coming up with a theory then finding experimental ways to confirm or deny and then improving the theory. They instead teach it as a set of facts, laws and rules. Ignorance of anything is punished or ridiculed. Challenging that dogma results in punishment. "I don't know" is actually the first step towards real knowledge and discovery. Schools shouldn't teach that this is sinful. They confuse the essential background knowledge as the entire field. Just the facts. Only teach the facts and punish anyone who can't regurgitate them mindlessly. How are you going to have enough humility to try several different approaches and accept being wrong on most of them if you're too scared to be wrong on even one of them? You have to accept being wrong. Anyone who isn't wrong often enough probably isn't asking or questioning hard, wide or large enough. You need to fail because if not, you're probably not experimenting. If you're not failing then you are not asking enough questions or your questions lack depth. Rocket launches are a classic example. If you haven't failed at least multiple times you haven't actually tried hard enough. Difficult things require plenty of experimentation. You have to risk being wrong on each attempt. Try something new or confirm something is true. Better to explode on the launchpad during experimentation than lie about your level of understanding and risk some real payload or even worse, people's lives. Writers have a similar refrain: if you haven't been rejected lately you aren't writing enough or you aren't pushing enough boundaries.