Mastering nature

In his discussion of the “Baconian project” in his recent Nature and Altering It , Allen Verhey makes the common-sensical, but often ignored, observation that mastery of nature doesn’t necessarily mean improvement: “Knowledge, in Bacon’s view, is power over nature, and the myth is that mastery over nature inevitably brings human wellbeing in its train.” Despite the recognition that science and technology is sometimes folly, “the mythos persists, establishing an ethos of confidence in technology to remedy our problems, including the problem created by technology.”

Verhey notes that the Baconian myth assumes that “The natural order and natural processes have no dignity of their own; their value is reduced to their utility to humanity. And nature does not serve humanity ‘naturally.’ Nature threatens to rule and ruin humanity. The fault that runs through our world and through our lives must finally be located in nature. In the myth of the Baconian project, nature is the enemy . . . . In this myth technology becomes the faithful savior.”