One example of this is maggot therapy. You may take this opportunity to retch and scream in horror.
Feel better? Good. I admit to being a little squicked when I first heard about it myself, but compared to the other stuff I looked at last night (search for "monster inside me" on youtube... or don't). But there is undeniable benefit to using fly larvae (the polite term for "maggots") in some medical cases involving severe skin infections and necrosis because they are able to work with more precision than human surgeons and bring other benefits that exceed our capabilities (namely antimicrobial properties). The supremely awesome "Gladiator" even referenced the benefits of letting maggots do the dirty work for us in cleaning wounds.
On to the thrust of my argument. If we were to replace the squishy fly larvae with nanobots, we would be talking about a technology. But because common perception equates "technology" with artificiality, we would hesitate at labeling these organisms as such. What is the key aspect of the concept of technology, however, is that we are using something to accomplish a task that we cannot do with our own hands (or other native capacities). A stick lying on the ground is not a technology, but if it's picked up and poked into a termite mound, it is now an assisted eating tool, a technology.
But an organism used in this fashion is not used in the way a stick is used. We put the little guys on the wound, but other than placing a dressing on them to keep them in place, they go about their business the way they've done for eons (I'll spare you the details). In some ways, it is imprecise to say "used," because we're seeing a type of symbiosis reminiscent of doctor fish, where one creature turns to another to help clean those "hard to reach" places, with the implication that the assisting creature is actively participating in the activity.
Thus I come to the need for a term to specifically recognize this type of activity, and both for its recognition of the union of techne and organic life and because it's a cute inversion of the term, "biotechnology," I have settled on "technobiology." ("Technebiology" would be a bit more accurate, but it doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well)
I'm working on a standard definition for this still, but I want to include the following elements:
- Involves conscious recruitment of another organism (only the recruiter must be conscious)
- Helper organism gets to act as it normally does (ie: not oxen pulling a plow)
- Helper organism is not destroyed as part of the intrinsic process (ie: eating them)
- The work or process of the organism is used, not their products (ie: manure)
Other examples of this include:
- Pollination of crops by bees
- Caddis fly jewelry
- Ladybird beetles eating aphids on farms
- Bacteria sent to clean up oil spills
- Goats clearing brush
There are several borderline cases I'm still mulling over, like fermentation (we end up consuming the microorganisms, or they die in their own sewage), sheep herding using dogs (or the rare pig), and genetically modified organisms as a whole (is it cheating?). My inner ethicist wants to enforce the caveat that harming the organism must not be an inherent part of the activity because there is something appealing about focusing on our roles as stewards in the world, where through our wise guidance we can work with other creatures to do more than we could do ourselves.
This is a topic I plan to write on regularly because it not only is intellectually and ethically appealing, but it holds a great deal of promise for future developments in technologies born not of our pride, but of our humility.
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