Practice question

Empirical classification represents most primitive arbitrary arrangement lacking natural affinity consideration, often organizing specimens alphabetically by genus name, by colour, size, medicinal use or collection sequence solely for convenience of reference and retrieval. It does not employ phylogenetic, anatomical or reproductive criteria as scientific basis. Thus classification based on alphabetical order exemplifies empirical. Such listings appear in early herbals, dictionaries and herbaria indices facilitating rapid lookup but conveying no evolutionary insight. Contrasts with artificial few characters, natural many correlated characters, phylogenetic common ancestry. Empirical approach still used for curation where natural order secondary.