** In the ancient Greek myth, Prometheus incurs the wrath of the gods because he gives fire to humans—the implication being that such a powerful technology is not suitable for mere mortals. The admonition not to play God is sometimes taken to be equivalent to “Don’t interfere with nature.” That’s singularly unhelpful advice. As the philosopher John Stuart Mill pointed out 150 years ago, the term “nature” is ambiguous. It can mean the sum total of reality (including the laws of nature, for example, Force equals Mass times Acceleration). Or it can mean the way things would go without human action. In the first sense, the admonition not to interfere with nature isn’t helpful, because we have no choice but to go along with nature. In the second sense, not interfering with nature would mean never acting and that, of course, isn’t an option if we wish to live.
— Allen Buchanan, Better Than Human
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