Philosophy of science
Both theory and observations are part of science, and they are tied together in a kind of cycle. A clear example was the prediction of Einstein that a source of gravity (such as a star) would bend light passing nearby. An expedition was organised in 1919 to record the positions of stars around the Sun during a solar eclipse. It showed that the positions of the stars close to the Sun were changed slightly from their normal expected positions. The light passing close to the Sun was pulled towards the sun by gravitation. This seemed to prove Einstein's general theory of relativity, published in 1915. Many years later, the proof was shown to be wrong. But by then other observations (of time dilation) showed that Einstein actually was right. Gravitational lensing proved that light was pulled towards the Sun.