Innovation inspired by Old Nature

Janine Benyus talks about biomimcry at TED (video). Of course, we “like” her book and appreciate the concept of biomimcry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) a lot. Still somewhere, I am always a bit reluctant about this philosophy of design-inspired-by-old-nature. Janine's jacket sort of sums it up: their view on the nature/culture relation tends to be rather naive.

What's great about biomimcry is that it isn't faking the superficial appearance of old nature (like plastic flower wallpapers), but aims to mimic old nature in its pragmatic functioning. Taking old nature as a mentor is a more modest and sympathetic attitude than the usual modernistic 'man has to control nature' perspective from the previous century. I would be interesting to hear Janine talk on how she thinks the categories of nature an culture would shift once the whole world has read her book.