According to Benjamin Farrington’s Greek Science, the rankist practices of the empires of the ancient world blocked the development of science until the Greeks came along. To manage colossal irrigation and temple-building projects, the old empires fostered superstition. The various and sundry god-kings sought to “accustom the masses to obeying any command that was given to them by their superiors…[because] he could rely on those who displayed their piety to be equally law-abiding in every other particular.”

In the free-wheeling merchant states of presocratic Greece, on the other hand, relatively independent men were encouraged to study industrial techniques and speculate on the way things work. Later as the Greeks came to rely on slaves and the upper classes distanced themselves from manual labor, the spirit of scientific inquiry declined.

Hopefully people will keep the origins of Western civilization in mind as political and religious interests maneuver to redefine science.