Analogies for Sustainable Development/Biomimicry as analogy

Overview
Biomimicry is adapting the designs of nature to solve the design challenges facing humans. Usually we think of biomimicry as a field of study, but we can also think of this entire field as a processing for developing and refining analogies between nature and society.

Analogy Map Examples
velcro, gene transfer?

Quote Bank
Thompson & Good (2005) :

"We have yet not uncovered the full potential available to us when we operate, like nature operates, as cooperative, highly motivated teams. The solution we propose [...] is the systematic study of nature’s most successful living teams and the extraction of principles about their operational logistics, behaviour patterns, command-structure, communication methods that can provide us with useful guidelines on how teams need to operate to be truly successful."

Further Resources

 * Biomimicry Institute
 * Bhushan, B. (2009). Biomimetics: lessons from nature-an overview. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 367(1893), 1445–1486. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2009.0011
 * Vincent, J. F. V, Bogatyreva, O. A., Bogatyrev, N. R., Bowyer, A., & Pahl, A.-K. (2006). Biomimetics: its practice and theory. Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 3(9), 471–82. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2006.0127