Lives in Engineering

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INTRODUCTION

Human history as cultural history

We need to reform our teaching of history so that the emphasis will be placed on the gradual growth of human culture and knowledge, a growth to which
all nations and ethnic groups have contributed.

This book is part of a series on cultural history. Here is a list of the other books in the series that have, until now, been completed:

• Lives in Astronomy
• Lives in Chemistry
• Lives in Medicine
• Lives in Ecology
• Lives in Physics
• Lives in Economics
• Lives in the Peace Movement

The pdf files of these books may be freely downloaded and circulated from here.

Human mastery over nature

Science and engineering have combined to give humans mastery over nature. This book traces that historical development, looking mainly at the contributions of engineering. It is a success story, but human society has now reached a critical point where our mastery of nature may destroy not only nature but also ourselves.

Chapter 11 of this book discusses Ecological Engineering, in other words, the engineering that we need to produce urgently needed renewable energy infrastructure. Without very rapid action, uncontrollable feedback loops may take over. At the same time we can be encouraged by the fact that renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels.

Pride in human achievements can be seen in a famous poem by Sophocles, who wrote:

Numberless are the world’s wonders, but none
More wonderful than man; the storm gray sea
Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high;
Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven
With shining furrows where his plows have gone
Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions.

The light-boned birds and beasts that cling to cover,
The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water,
All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind;
The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned,
Resign to him; and his blunt yoke has broken
The sultry shoulders of the mountain bull.

We can take pride in human mastery over nature, but at the same time we must remember that excessive pride was called “hubris” by the ancient Greeks, and in their dramas, it as always punished by the gods. We are not outside nature. We are part of the natural world, and our survival depends on whether we respect nature, and care for it.

Read the entire book above or download it here.

We thank John Scales Avery, a renowned intellectual, EACPE board member, and theoretical chemist at the University of Copenhagen, for giving us permission to reproduce his latest book for EACPE.