Team Empiricism: If a model is written in a forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Neither theory nor empiricism is 'better' or 'worse' for the advancement of science.  But theory for the sake of theory is about as useless as experimentalists who throw things in a bucket just to 'see what happens'.  Both represent discovery science - unguided attempts to identify natural phenomena in a way that is akin to throwing darts at a target while in the dark.  Discovery science is an inefficient way to progress knowledge, and has little place in the portfolio of funding agencies that manage dwindling budgets, journals that have limited space, and editors who have increasingly limited time.