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Originally Posted by TheHalcyonYear
The scientific method is far from obsolete. Datamining and other methods of study can tell us what occurs, but it cannot answer the question of why. The scientific method provides us with such scientific laws as F=ma; PV=qRt. These require the scientific method to take the data that has been collected and provide a reasoned understand of the underlying mechanism at work.
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It looks like everybody here agrees that the scientific method is not obsolete. However, Newton does not provide a "why" or an "underlying mechanism" for why the planets move as they do. Here's Isaac:
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But our purpose is only to trace out the quantity and properties of this force from the phenomena, and to apply what we discover in some simple cases as principles, by which, in a mathematical way, we may estimate the effects thereof in more involved cases...We said, in a mathematical way, to avoid all questions about the nature or quality of this force, which we would not be understood to determine by any hypothesis...
...I use the word impulse, not defining in this treatise the species or physical qualities of forces, but investigating the quantities and mathematical proportions of them..." --pages 464-465, Never at Rest by Richard S. Westfall
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Westfall also writes:
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For his part, Leibniz was astonished that Newton had not proceeded to find the cause of the law of gravity, by which he meant an aethereal vortex which would reduce attraction to a mechanical cause. --page 472
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Hence, Newton tells us about the behavior of planets but not about an underlying mechanism behind it. Newton's view on this is that his theory is the better for it because whatever the underlying mechanism turns out to be, his theory will still hold.
These newfangled computational techniques likewise address the behavior of the data, so to speak, omitting an underlying mechanism. They are similar to Newton's methods in that regard.
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Ken: This illustrates where you and I differ in the model, mental, etc. discussions. Some people might think that Newton talks about a hidden or underlying force, but all he can discuss is what he sees, that is, the behavior of objects. You seem to think that "model," "mental," "circle," and the like likewise refer to something underlying or hidden ("in the mind"), whereas I think that all we can and do talk about is what we see happen--behavior--and that do so profitably without having to uncover underlying mechanisms or whatever. We make do with characterizing behavior. I don't consider that which we see as inferior symptoms of a superior underlying principle. You can think of me as championing the visible.)