Avram > tannaim are passing down the mesorah
Avrah, how do you explain Bava Basra 21 that explicitly describes the trial and error process that Tannaim (or earlier) used to come up with a working educational system?
Maybe we can agree that yes they had a mesorah of what the goals are; that one should try; and one should not be shy of rejecting what does not work; and respect empirical research
In general, note that some of the classical science was rejecting empirical approach in favor of nice-looking theories. There are a number of places where T’Ch are more empirical than Greeks. I read a paper about it but can’t recall the source right now.