In ôTechnology, Technique, and the Body,ö Edward Tenner (2003), provides an article showing how other animal species besides human beings adapt their technique and body behavior based on technology. From bears to orangutans, Tenner uses the animal kingdom to show how a host of technological innovations from chairs and telephone dialing systems to helmets and shoes have affected human development, particularly the body and its technique. Opposed to technology doomsayers who maintain technology robs human existence of purpose and meaning, Tenner (2003, p. 9) argues that technology leads to a cyclical process of change seldom for the worse because ôOur material culture changes by an unpredictable dialectical flux of instrument and performance, weapon and tactic.ö
Tenner supports his argument for humans transforming technology as much as technology transforms humans by showing evidence from the animal kingdom of a similar nature, like the way bears learn to modify their body technique to open screw-top jars of peanut-butter or the way orangutans learn to disassemble their cages. In a like manner, our own body and techniques are modified by technology, but, in a cyclical and ongoing process according to Tenner (2003), we then impact more technological changes from our interaction with technology. Examples of this are air bag technology, which makes us modify our body technique to position our hands on a steering wheel in a new position, and circular dialers on telephones, which made us relearn how to use our bodies to make a proper call. As Tenner (2003, p. 8) argues in his article, ôTechnique is crucial for the evolution of technology.ö
The process of technological evolution does not remove mankind from nature as many opponents of technological advance maintain. Rather, says Tenner, technology develops human beings and alters their relationship with nature in often quite
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