As I research examples of biomimicry research and products for my articles in the new biomimicry section of my website, I expect I will largely rely on engineering sources that I am familiar with such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. However, I have discovered a non-engineering source that publishes good information called The Biomimicry Institute. While I believe this organization points to good research and interesting results within the field of biomimicry, its philosophical foundation is totally opposite to mine. Let’s take a look at their philosophy.
The Biomimicry Institute is a politically driven organization that is based on sustainability thinking. Their lead motto is that, “The Biomimicry Institute empowers people to create nature-inspired solutions for a healthy planet.” As a believer in God’s dominion mandate in Genesis, I do not argue against that as a worthy motto or mission statement. However, I do take issue with other missional statements they make.
For example, they write the following: “The human-constructed world is ripe for a deep redesign, and this time, it needs to be good for all life. Fortunately, we are surrounded by experts in life-enhancing design—the organisms and living systems that have been developing in an epic give and take for billions of years.” And they define biomimicry as, “a practice that learns from and mimics the strategies found in nature to solve human design challenges in a regenerative way.”
Clearly this organization is grounded on materialistic naturalism. We can see similarity in their thinking to that of Darwin and his idea of natural selection where the adaptation of organisms to their environments is due to natural processes acting on them in some semi-intelligent manner. This has been shown to be a flawed concept since it is incorrect to attribute this kind of influence to inanimate things like nature, the environment, or the climate. True science indicates that nature can affect variation within a kind of organism, but only to an extent limited by the genetic material originally placed in the organism. Organisms and living systems are not in any scientific sense “design experts.”
And the Institute ascribes to nature the ability to strategize and regenerate. Strategy is defined as the science of planning and directing operations and certainly requires an intelligent cause. So far as the “regenerative” aspect, I don’t know if they believe this to be a spiritual rebirth or some sort of resurrected action that they see in nature. All of these explanations and beliefs are foreign to the presuppositional foundation of the biblical creationist. Instead we look at the General Revelation (Romans 1) understanding that God is the source for all that we see in creation. We can ask God with an expectation of answers, but “asking nature” will result in total silence.
We must remember that we should always attribute the marvelous machines and systems in the creation that we seek to imitate to the Creator Engineer who really made them. The Biomimicry Institute may bow to Nature, but I will bow only to God.
J.D. Mitchell
