This is the same scientific method that Aristotle employs so successfully in examining natural phenomena: careful observation followed by tentative theories to explain the observations. The immediate and pressing question, then, is whether Aristotle is right in applying his scientific method to poetry. Physical phenomena are subject to unchanging, natural laws, and presumably a careful study of the phenomena matched with a little insight might uncover what these natural laws are. Aristotle seems to be proceeding with the assumption that the same is true for poetry: its growth and development has been guided by unchanging, natural laws, and the Poetics seeks to uncover these laws.
Aristotle is not trying to condemn Robert Burns for writing love poems; he is
Of course, the fact is, Greek tragedy has produced a number of masterworks, and posterity suggests that no Greek epic poet after Homer approached the great tragedians in terms of quality. But this seems to be more of an argument in favor of the tragedies that have been written rather than favoring the genre in the abstract.
Perhaps we would do better to understand Aristotle's distinction as being between fact and fiction. We tell stories to help make sense of a world that at times may seem frighteningly meaningless. There are no beginnings or ends in real life, and the stuff in between is nowhere near as neatly organized as it is in tragedy. The role of the tragedian is to take a certain series of events and to trace a logical sequence between them. The trag
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