Sorry, but no. Science can be either trying out random stuff because there is no preexisting knowledge you could apply but you have something in mind you want to see what it does, sure. But science is also using the knowledge that's already out there to make something new of it. Translation of knowledge from different approaches into something that you are interested in.
Unless you went for a real scotsmen kind of joke and I missed it...
Sorry, but no. Science can be either trying out random stuff because there is no preexisting knowledge you could apply but you have something in mind you want to see what it does, sure. But science is also using the knowledge that's already out there to make something new of it. Translation of knowledge from different approaches into something that you are interested in.
Unless you went for a real scotsmen kind of joke and I missed it...
A lot of machine learning work is empirical so it was more a joke at the expense of oversimplifying the situation.