'the scientific method is obsolete' ?? data can provide correlations and if you are just trying to match 2 things together to error<x difference then yeah, grab

'the scientific method is obsolete' ?? data can provide correlations and if you are just trying to match 2 things together to error<x difference then yeah, grab enough data and you can do it. that hardly makes the scientific method obsolete - a good piece of science indicates things that you don't know e.g. dirac's anti-electron, einstein's gravity waves. generally if you can't derive a correlation from first principles i don't think you can claim to 'understand' it (warning - metaphysics ahead). i'm also thinking correlations allow interpolation, theoretical basis allows extrapolation.