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Plant Sex from Empedocles to Theophrastus
The sixth century bce marked a turning point in intellectual history throughout
Eurasia. Charismatic religious philosophers such as Confucius and Lao- Tsu in China,
Buddha in India, Zoroaster in Persia, and Pythagoras and the pre- Socratic Ionian phi-
losophers in Greece all rose to prominence during this period. In the same century, the
first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, are thought to have been compiled.^1 These
free- thinking scholars all had one thing in common: for the most part they abandoned
the older, polytheistic religions, with their ever- expanding and increasingly unwieldy and
implausible pantheons of personified deities, in favor of a universe operating according to
a single, all- embracing, divine order. Eastern philosophers (Confucius, Lao- Tsu, Buddha,
and Zoroaster) taught that the divine order was ineffable and unknowable. They empha-
sized personal, spiritual, and moral perfection as the only paths to enlightenment. In con-
trast, the Pythagoreans and pre- Socratic Greek philosophers taught that the universe was
governed by a divine order that could only be understood through mathematical or physical
laws. “Natural laws” were discoverable through direct observation and the application of
logic. This is the tradition that eventually gave rise to modern science.
Greek faith in the ability of logic to solve the deepest questions of existence can perhaps
be traced to the early city- states, or poleis, where civic laws and policies were hammered
out in democratic citizen assemblies by arguments and persuasion rather than by fiat from
monarchs or oligarchs. During public debates, statements backed by evidence were con-
sidered more compelling than unsupported assertions. Similarly, in the legal system, court
cases were decided by juries composed of hundreds of citizens after listening to the argu-
ments and weighing the evidence presented by both sides of a dispute. In his play The Birds,
Aristophanes makes fun of the Greek passion for legal arguments: