A mentor of mine in the physical sciences used to emphasize the following. Having a formal theory forces one to address the question of assumptions etc. All interpretations are based on them.
Good theories can stimulate good experiments.
An experiment can be bad science as well. While well done specific criticism is certainly valid, I would argue that good criticism requires a knowledge of that which is being criticized. The statement that a system is too complex to model, seems to me to require the author to be fairly knowledgeable about not just the biology, but process of modeling etc and the mathematics and science on which it has been based. Many of the critics I run into are definitely not.