> In a sense it's not surprising this idea comes from rationalism-adjacent folks, as rationalism is mostly about the idea that experimentation is irrelevant and you can infer anything using just logic alone.

Yeah IIRC Yudkowski famously said something about a super intelligence could derive the theory of gravity correctly by seeing only three frames of a video depicting an apple falling from a tree. This is the same Less Wrong nonsense, rejecting how vital and irreplaceable experimentation is.

There's an infinite number of explanations for the location of an object in three equally time-spaced instances. Not to mention limitations of the measuring equipment itself.