So central is the plow to farming that is has become the symbol of agriculture through the ages. Little is known about its origins but we do know that by about 1000 BC, the wooden plowshare had already been replaced by an iron version and by 100 BC wheels had been added.

There is no doubt that much can and has been written about how along with the plow, other modern farming methods evolved leading to ever greater efficiencies in the production of food. It is hard to overstate the importance of this to man's ability to function as he delved ever deeper into the mysteries of his universe.

Although towns and cities as centers for technology and trade were common even in ancient times in places like Mesopotamia and Greece, their survival depended largely on the labor of slaves. Even the "democratic" institutions of Athens for example were limited largely to the elite of that city-state and any "scientific" efforts tended to also be limited to this group.

I suspect that may have had something to do with the way early science developed. Perhaps ancient scientists didn't like to get their hands dirty and because of this very few theories were tested by actual experiment. In the Western Hemisphere and especially in Western Europe that didn't really change until the growth of the towns with their crafts and commerce. They were in turn the product of the better farming to sustain them.

The towns and small cities of medieval Europe saw the early stirrings of modern life. Craftsmen plied their trade creating everything from cloth, leathergoods and fine carpentry for daily household use, to many of the magnificent cathedrals that grace the European landscape to this day. Most of this was already commonplace in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

For our purposes, the so-called craft tradition had a significant impact on the growth of modern science. It was the hands-on approach that led to the eventual development of empiricism, an expensive word meaning "check it out". You can't begin to know scientific reality without seeing it, touching it, feeling it and tasting it.

This common sense idea that began to take hold as early as the eleventh century, gradually undermined many of the wrong headed notions that had crept into the science of the day. As such, it was a healthy alternative to the fusty approach inherited from the Greek philosophers that basically precluded any challenge to how the world was perceived.

It is unfortunate that in more recent times, empiricism more formally stated by the likes of John Locke and Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century, created its own set of constraints but that's another story. As an alternative to the Church-endorsed dogmatic approach to scientific practice in the middle ages, the empirical method was a breath of fresh air.

This is still true today. Don't assume that heavy objects fall faster than light ones, test it! Don't assume that projectiles travel in a straight line and then plummet directly to earth, check it out. Don't assume that the moon is a smooth perfect sphere, look at it!

The change in thinking didn't come overnight nor without a lot of struggle. Nor were all issues easily resolved. But change did come and with it the better understanding we enjoy to-day. I like to think that the humble plow had a lot to do with that.

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