Technology and ecology

The mechanistic worldview that has determined nature as a machine composed of related but discrete components helps to support the commonly held idea that humans are at the pinnacle of creation, the source of all value, the measure of all things. In offering resistance to this way of thinking and rejecting the assumption of human self-importance in the larger scheme of things, physicist Fritjof Capra has argued that our society is now embarking on a fundamental shift towards a more ecological, holistic, organic, or systemic view of the world. This chapter identifies a few threads of the mechanical and ecological paradigms and describes some characteristics that seem to signal a shift from one to the other giving emphasis to the importance of aligning future technological developments with ecological values and the practice of sustainability.