As always, generalization is the tool of the fool (sorry for the fool part, but it rhymes ;) ). Writing pointless stubs / mocks and testing execution order of statements is definitely a bad pattern, writing many and good functional, e2e and integration tests however is not.
When You are cleaning up tech debt and make hundreds of lines of changes and no acceptance tests break (because everything is still working as it should) but 50 unit tests break... I've wasted so much of my life
Also worth a read while we're at it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140623171038-114018241-test...
To a first approximation, nobody is being empirical, and there is no science being done.
When programmers change a factor to "see what breaks", that is very much an empirical activity, and it is part of the programmer's theory-building of a phenomena.
If a young child takes a gear from a watch and observes its breaking, that is very much an empirical activity. It is also the beginning of theory-building.
You don't need MANOVA to engage in empiricism.
Approximately nobody is being empirical about what works well and does not in testing. Use this approach vs. that approach, do this, no - do this instead. It's all largely heuristic.
Individuals performing testing and debugging are usually at least most empirical, I agree (although occasionally the rubber chickens come out)