Canonically, biology including medicine considers hypothesis-driven research as its ultimate goal. In biomedicine, experimental proof of a hypothesis is sometimes translated into a clinical intervention, a process termed translational medicine. With recent achievements in genomics and other biomics increasingly large datasets are being generated which, e.g., allow assessment of genetic variability of humans and their predisposition to certain diseases. Some scientists take the position that this approach lacks any hypothesis and sometimes disqualify it as fishing experiment. Others argue instead that new hypotheses can be generated through analysis of large datasets which can subsequently be contested in specific analytical systems. However, large datasets and hypothesis-driven research are not mutually exclusive. Rather they are complementary and when applied in an iterative way can provide deep insights into biological and medical phenomena leading to a systems biologic view of life.