Idea of Progress

Idea of Progress

To begin with, I would say that progress is usually considered as a good thing; indeed, its goal is to improve people’s quality of life, health, knowledge, and means of communications and so on…

Progress enables the world to evolve, to change for the better by way of innovations and scientific, technological or technical discoveries. And yet, this evolution isn’t meliorative for everybody, progress is also affected by some derivative, risks taking and social or economical dizziness. Therefore, progress is regularly called into question.

I’m going to talk about the notion ‘Idea of Progress’, and especially about the positive and negative sides of progress. Indeed, to present this notion, I have chosen to talk about the human cloning, and also the genetic modification, his purposes and consequences, the ethnical limits to progress, through three documents: First, an extract of the CHS Globe online, from the 29/01/2010, then an article from an American daily newspaper about Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis, and, finally, I’ll also talk about an extract of Brave New World, an anticipation dystopia written by Aldous HUXLEY in 1932.

→PBL

        Is Progress always a progress? Does Progress address our desire more than our needs?

→PLAN

In order to answer this problematic, a framework in several parts will be established. First, we’ll study the positive aspects of progress in science then, we’ll talk about the harmful effect it can have.

→PART ONE – POSITIVE PROGRESS

        So, in order to explain what the positive aspects of progress are, I have to give a definition of what is PGD (Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis). PGD enable to detect the presence of potential genetics anomalies, in embryos which were conceived through the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), in order to distinguish the embryos which suffering from genetic diseases, from those which are healthy, or unharmed, indeed, Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) enables people with an inheritable condition in their family to avoid passing it on to their children. It involves checking the genes and/or chromosomes of embryos created through IVF.

        First of all, we can think that PGD and genetic modification are a good thing, indeed, it allow to infertile couples to have child, moreover, today, this method may be used in security, because it’s really reliable, and it can detect genetic diseases, or chromosomal anomalies, and eliminate them.

        The second document we’ve studying was about a young girl, name-called Molly. This text really shows us the positive aspects of scientific progress, and his innovations: indeed, Molly was destined to die really young, but the birth of her little brother, Adam, the first Designer Baby, allow her to live, thanks to transplant.

→PART TWO – NEGATIVE PROGRESS        

        On the other hand, the scientific progress in genetic modifications has also really negative aspects.

Indeed, even if it can help many families to have babies, it particularly generates violent moral and bioethics debates.

        Indeed, first of all, we can notice that the first document, show us the negative aspects of PGD Nowadays. Indeed, it is used to choose the features (eyes color, etc,) of the baby, it looks like so strange, like if we could buy a baby, moreover, it’s like if babies were going to be a commercial mass-production, it can became like a sort of cash business. It means that people will choose the traits, the characteristics of their future baby. Indeed, thanks to Genetics, we can select some specific features, while eradicating unwanted imperfections, but there are bioethics limits to this. It looks really unnatural; furthermore, it’s really expensive, and kind of strange, strange and creepy or seedy.

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