In medicine, we have researchers and practitioners. The researcher aims at understanding the workings of the human body and the effects of various variables, e.g., procedures and drugs. The practitioner aims at applying that knowledge by manipulating those variables for some purpose, e.g., curing an illness. Medicine began as an art form. It evolved as a field when it began observation and theory formulation.
Experimentation varies from controlled experiments to qualitative analysis.
Depending on the area of interest, data may be hard to acquire. Human variance causes problems in interpreting results. However, our knowledge of the human body has evolved overtime. The focus in manufacturing is to better understand and control the relationship between process and product for quality control. The nature of the discipline is that the same product is generated, over and over, based upon a set of processes, allowing the building of models with small tolerances.