The Way Ahead for Technology: Imitating Nature

Each passing day, man makes new progress in technology, produces wonders in design and production. Human beings can design and produce new products with the skills God grants them. This point deserves particular attention, because God gives them this skill, so people have no right to be puffed up with pride or arrogant.

Nature is one of the pieces of evidence for this. Anyone, who looks around carefully, can see that God has gifted nature with countless wonders. Everywhere, every living being, from plants to animals, on land and in sea, is equipped with amazing features. In this chapter, where living beings that serve as examples of technology are presented, the purpose is to show that the things people think they have attained with their own skill already exist in nature and to remind us how wrong it is for man to be boastful.

Some designs produced by man after years of research, effort and technological development have existed in nature for millions of years. Scientists, who realize this, have been observing nature for a very long time and they make use of it in their inventions. They have started to develop new models by referring to the examples in nature. They have realized with some astonishment that there is a great difference between the techniques they use and the perfect techniques used in nature. This has led them to accept the existence of a superior Owner of Wisdom Who rules over nature. They understand that all these subtleties could not have been formed by coincidence. The owner of this superior wisdom whose existence they have grasped through science is unquestionably God, the Sustainer of the heavens and the earth.

For instance, after dolphins were studied, a projection called the "dolphin snout" was added to ships' bows, which were initially produced in a "V" shape. Designers understood that the structure of the dolphin's snout is ideal for the best hydrodynamic cutting through water. No doubt, not only the structure of the snout, but all the features of the dolphin are ideal, because each one of them is the work of God Who is the "Maker." (Qur'an 59:24)

The features of living beings have existed for millions of years, that is, since they were created. Man, however, has only been able to imitate some of their features in the last couple of centuries. For those who can see the evidence of the might of God, everything in nature is endowed with such features. This is stated in a verse:

(These are) an instruction and a reminder for every penitent human being. (Qur'an, 50:8)