Bac anglais: l'idée de progrès

First, I define the notion of idea of progress.

The idea of progress can be defined as an improvement, a development or a change. A technical, scientific and social advance contributes to making the world a better place.

It's the idea that the world can become increasingly better in terms of science, technology, modernization, liberty, democracy and quality of life.

The are several forms of progress :

- the social progress which is equivalent to the impact of advances on the society. For example quality of life, right of people, freedom, democracy...

- the scientific and technological progress : it's the idea that the sciences and new technologies enable to resolve some problems. The scientific progress relate more to medicine and biology whereas the technological progress is new technologies to slow down climate change, to advances in communication and automated production.

In order to illustrate this notion, I have chosen three documents that we studied in class.

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A (Social progress)

• The first document I have chosen is an audio-recorded extract from an interview with someone of Greenpeace. He speaks about the growing awareness of both consumers and corporations in terms of taking care of the environment. The journalist alludes to product purchase by young as jeans, junk food, cosmetics.

The speaker confirm that meat is one of the most important contributors to climate change in our diet. If one were to reduce meat consumption that would generally lower the carbon footprint.

This document invite us to think about the notion of sustainable development. At the moment, this notion is at the heart of the current.

On the one hand, we can say that it relate to the social progress because we have to reduce our carbon footprint. Therefore, we must think about an alternative of this problem and this have an impact on the society and change their quality of life.

B (Technological progress)

• The second document is a video extract from net news. It talk about Google Drones. Indeed, Google is developing drones to deliver packages. It testing drones in Australia to deliver anything from dog food to medicine. A drone looks like an airplane; so it's new technologies inspired by other technologies.

But, drones have to face challenges, such as teaching the drones to navigate around each other, ensuring safety, cutting noise. Another sky-high challenge: convincing regulators which severely limit commercial operations of drones.

Drones is a perfect example of new technologies which contributes to making the world better.

C (Scientific progress)

• The last example we will address is House, a series that we approached in class. It shows us the medical and scientific progress. For exemple, now, we can makes organ transplant and cure more disease through the research.

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