How do experimental and non-experimental research complement each other?

Answer 1

Some knowledge, we attain just by looking at processes, and logically reason us out an answer. This is known as empirical knowledge: knowledge based on what we can see.

Theoretical research, in many cases, lays the foundation for later practical research, and is absolutely necessairy when it comes to making discovieres that are more complex, or simply hard to plainly see.

I'll try give you an example:

Mathematics and Physics-

A rocket scientist wants to send a rocket to the moon. But the earth spins around itself, the moon spins around the earth, and to top it all off, they're really far apart.

So the scientist must first do some non experimental science: he must calculate how much fuel he needs, how much time the rocket needs to get to the moon's altitude from earth, and then when to launch the rocked to make for a perfect hit (and more, of course ;P)

So, when all the theoretical stuff is done, he can move on to the practical bit, and actually launch the rocket, and empirically se whether it hits or not.

Another example:

Ever heard of CERN? if not, just Google it real quick.

First, scientists came up with a theory of how basic paritcles function, and out from the model they constructed, they were able to predict that severeal additional (undiscovered) particles had to exist.

They then conducted experiments to search for these particles, and guess what? They found them all :P (except for the higgs boson, they're still looking for that -.-)

So in short: Non experimental research has the role of pinpointing, or bringing the complex or "invisible" into a realm where we can conduct experiments on it, and by doing so, allowing us to assert more facts, and learn more about the subject.

Without non-experimental research, experimental research would just be fumbling in the dark :P