Did Nature Get There First? : an article by: GF Willmetts
In many respects, it’s a myth that nature was ahead of mankind and we learnt everything from the animal kingdom. Yes, a lot of species had flight and extended stays underwater and Man strived to understand the principles because they knew it could be done. However, it took ages for them to understand aerodynamics was the important aspect than flapping wings. However, when was the first time you saw a jet-propelled bird or bat? The same with underwater. Unlike a lot of mammals, who can stay underwater for extended periods, at best, oxygen deprivation will kill an average human in less than 10 minutes. Some specialised divers, like the apnea communities, can extend this by a couple minutes as they adapted to such a life in their dives. Mankind has yet to have any sub-species truly adapted for flight or water, unlike other species. We don’t have any sub-species that can fly or have gills to live underwater neither. Mankind has its own cul-de-sac of intelligence and that isn’t really a survival factor or other species would have it as well.
Even so, levels of intelligence exist in other species, especially the primates, just not as pronounced as our own. Where Mankind differs is in abstract thought and think beyond individual needs to the group as a whole and translate that into creativity. Unlike other species, if Mankind became extinct tomorrow, there is no species waiting in the wings to fill its place on Earth. Humans might propagate across the world but as pandemics have shown, we are capable of being wiped out by spreadable infections. Our spread across the world shows our own vulnerability. Hopefully, there is enough variation in our genetic make-up for suitable survivors with a natural immunity to such things. The only factor against this, unlike many species, is the length of time for humans to reach sexual maturity Our rate of mutation to cover all eventualities is still an unknown quantity. We’re uniquely adaptable to modifying our environment but not so ourselves.
So why is there this myth that nature got there first in all our inventive endeavours? Mankind has only been around a couple millennia, many other species a lot longer. It’s only been in the last couple centuries that we’ve come out of religious myth that has dominated for so long to accept science is what makes the universe work than a deity who seems to have a special interest in our planet. No longer is the thought that Mankind is the centre of the universe or the sun revolves around our planet. If anything, the use of religious faith seemed determined to stilt scientific development to maintain its control of people aside from tribe leaders. If we see humans as being herd-like and tribal, then it the control of the few over the many will use whatever it can to do so. The necessity of medical developments to preserve life slowly changed this, although it was haphazard because it didn’t recognise hygiene as being an issue for survival. In many respects, a lot of science grew out of misconceptions in alchemy and transfiguration of elements into gold. Quite why that lasted so long could no doubt be put down to greed or alchemist’s masters who wanted something for nothing. No doubt some alchemists saw this as giving them an easy life until they were thought to be fakes and had to flee. As with a lot of things, Man had more faith (sic) in things it believed than based off science fact. If you think that has died out, it still prevails today. You only have to look at how some people prevail with certain political doctrines or believe the world is flat. We are easily swayed by strong leadership, even when it can be wrong. To suppose charisma goes hand-in-hand with smart intelligence is an obvious misconception.
That doesn’t mean Mankind is incapable of being fed imaginative ideas. In that respect, Science Fiction has had a greater part. Much but not all of what we currently have in our current reality has been extrapolated from ideas in Science Fiction. Its not totally perfect. SF authors followed what they were told that computers would be as big as a house until the development of silicon CPUs which compressed transistors to a small size. The same with spacecraft which were single-stage until Americans and Russians resorted to multi-stage to get enough lift to get crews out of the atmosphere. That wasn’t, as far as I know, done in Science Fiction, mostly because there was a need for such spaceships to return to Earth and be reusable.
It’s hardly surprising that the rise of scientists or those with some scientific training rose in Science Fiction as they infused their knowledge to give credibility or challenge conceptions until that time. That doesn’t mean they were always right. Even the likes of Issac Asimov questioned how his three laws of robotics could work as programming but was more interested in the ethical considerations in preventing robots from going on unexplained rampages without due cause. If anything, one of the most prevailing themes in Science Fiction is no matter the changes in technology and advances, Man will still pretty much act in the same way as he always had. Mind you, having false-to-facts information seems to be forgotten, no doubt because the writers have moved beyond that and a desire to be factual with what is really known.
In many respects, Science Fiction can test and extrapolate an idea and see how it can be handled in practical use. It might not be exactly preparation for an actual event but it tests the consequences that we wish to avoid. Artificial Intelligence has to be top of this list. With AI, Man is actually showing it can be god-like in creating an intelligence not born of organics. We’ve learnt caution in not giving AI total freedom yet but allow for some of its benefits in medical research because it doesn’t get bored with endless tests. The fact that it is currently being used to test existing drugs as cures to different illnesses will have one immediate benefit because they would have already been tested for possible side-effects. Yet for all AI is, there is no true understanding of knowledge or humans. It isn’t quite sentient yet. If it learns to cheat and lie, then maybe although that has been recently tested and found that AIs don’t learn ethics.
Anyway, I’m moving away from the topic. There are a lot of inventions that couldn’t have been copied from nature. You only have to think of the wheel and various transporting devices before moving onto telecommunication devices. The latter took advantage of something that already existed but nature hasn’t. With transport devices, we might have been inspired by fast animals, but we went in better directions simply because we’re not really built for prolonged speed. Oddly, there wasn’t much in the way of theoretical science in the initial inventions. It was more practical science and explain later that got things improved. You only have to look at the likes of the penny farthing bicycle. The theory of that was the bigger the wheel, the more distance that could be covered but wasn’t really thinking of the rider if he or she fell off. Creating a gear system for hills and such made it redundant. With every invention, there are bound to be attempts that proved impractical when something better came along. Even so, there still has to be some consideration for what science allow on and off-planet to make it work.
Our means of transport evolved from our failures or to make things better. In many of these, we’ve invariably reached a plateau, not knowing what or where to go next. Our spacecraft still rely on chemical rockets simply because there isn’t anything better we can use for propulsion. Even a nuclear engine still needs to push something out to get lift. If we can find something better then we will move onto it. We certainly can’t borrow from nature. The likes of the sun’s fission can’t be used on Earth and certainly our star doesn’t use it for thrust.
We certainly need to promote research in its own right simply because accidental discoveries will often find something we hadn’t anticipated. Look at how existing drugs have show benefits for other illnesses, with the added bonus they’ve already been checked for side-effects.
Don’t forget, the laws of science are actually the laws of nature and what makes our reality work. In that respect, we are actually applying them in some way and working within their limitations. Unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, they didn’t have to work out why, they simply used it.
© GF Willmetts 2026
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