Thursday 17 September 2015

Technological advancement, natural?

Technological advancement, domination of nature, all natural processes? Recently I did a research on biofuels and there are a few interesting ideas I have come across, which i will discuss in the span of a few weeks from today onwards.
First generation biofuels (corn) are biofuels that can be both food crops and biofuels, second generation biofuels (jatropha) are those which are not of any other commercial use and third generation biofuels are genetically modified oil-producing algae. (Generations of Biofuels - Energy from waste and wood, 2015) Biofuels are of course, resources of nature and they can be signs of mankind dominating nature. Third generation biofuels are clearly dominated by us because they are ‘creations of mankind’. Others argue that domination started before that. Plants are commonly seen as the basis of life as it is the source of energy for almost all living things on earth. Yet we are using these resources for our own consumption in a way that population size and survival of these species are human-dependent. In other words, domination starts when we start planting crops consciously, thereby replacing natural selection with artificial selection through manipulation of nature to suit our own needs. Does that mean discovering fire and creating tools back in the Stone Age are evidences of domination of nature? Or are they simply our means of survival? Darwin would say that technology is a tool mankind used to out compete other species (survival of the fittest). Evolution will not happen without domination – it is a natural process. Today, it seems like we dominate other species more than we are supposed to such that these species are no longer 'natural'. However if domination and evolution are natural processes, human domination of other species, domination of evolution or even nature can simply be argued to be the work of nature herself. Hence every artifact we have on earth today – cars, societies, economies, technological development, economic development, they are all a result of natural processes? 

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