Careful observations define empirical science. When “modern science” experts teach us about nature, we expect to learn about how our world works.
How does snow form and fall? How do birds fly? How do squirrels jump? How do fish swim? The answers require us to look with exacting care and to record what we see with exacting accuracy. Objective observations, carefully reported, qualify such studies as “empirical science,” i.e., seeing the natural world in the present.