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Description
There's a tiny bone needle at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire. For archaeologist Matt Pope it's hugely significant. 13,000 years ago local people used it to construct tailored clothing which allowed t...hem to survive and thrive at the very limits of Ice Age civilisation.Skip forward millennia and the first human visitor to Mars will be protected by a thin skin of man-made fabric, a suit containing the only biological processes for millions of miles. Our ability to create tools that take us into new and hostile environments is, for Matt Pope, the key to man's evolutionary journey.It's a view he shares with the first philosopher of technology, Ernst Kapp. Living through Germany's rapid industrial revolution Kapp came to believe that we could extend all the functions of the human mind and body through technology. Together, man and his tools would know no limits.
There's a tiny bone needle at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire. For archaeologist Matt Pope it's hugely significant. 13,000 years ago local people used it to construct tailored clothing which allowed t...hem to survive and thrive at the very limits of Ice Age civilisation.Skip forward millennia and the first human visitor to Mars will be protected by a thin skin of man-made fabric, a suit containing the only biological processes for millions of miles. Our ability to create tools that take us into new and hostile environments is, for Matt Pope, the key to man's evolutionary journey.It's a view he shares with the first philosopher of technology, Ernst Kapp. Living through Germany's rapid industrial revolution Kapp came to believe that we could extend all the functions of the human mind and body through technology. Together, man and his tools would know no limits.
| Series: | A history of ideas |
|---|---|
| First transmission date: | 2015-01-30 |
| Original broadcast channel: | BBC Radio 4 |
| Published: | 2015 |
| Rights Statement: | Rights owned or controlled by The Open University |
| Restrictions on use: | This material can be used in accordance with The Open University conditions of use. A link to the conditions can be found at the bottom of all OU Digital Archive web pages. |
| Duration: | 00:11:00 |
| Note: | Radio 4 version |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | Alisdair Cross |
| Presenter: | Matt Pope |
| Contributors: | Matthew Pope; Tim Ingold; John Cartlidge; Clive Gamble |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Production number: | AUDA845B |
| Available to public: | no |
