Is theory better than a controlled experiment?

Hirsch argues in a lovely but disconcerting article that controlled experiments in education are a waste of time. When I started reading this, my laptop was at serious risk of flying out the window. But by the end of the article, I was hooked.

I think we would restate hi main claim as saying, "Know your area of application." He argues that we can learn more about education by thinking hard about research from cognitive science and developing theories.