ABSTRACT
We have seen that both ecocentrics and technocentrics make heavy use of science as a method for investigating nature and its characteristics. It appears that each side makes its investigations according to the canons of scientific method, and then draws conclusions about the nature of the man-environment relationship as it is and as it should be. Such conclusions are based, we assume, upon a rigorously objective scrutiny of the data, and a rational induction of principles or ‘laws’ from it. Through this process – which is compatible with Bacon’s concept of scientific method and the popular modern view of how science proceeds – we might expect to come to some kind of agreed, objective and authoritative conclusions about man’s relationship to nature as it is, can and should be. Impartial policies based on these conclusions could then be formulated in the interests of all, for social progress in general.
