Idea of Progress : is the scientific progress always improving life?

Notion Idea of Progress

The notion I am going to deal with is Idea of Progress. To begin, I would like to give the definition of this notion : the Idea of Progress is the different advances in technological, scientific and social fields which may contribute to make the world a better place to live in. Indeed, the history shows that most of the advances have been positive althrough some were very dangerous. However, there are much more technological and scientific breakthroughs than before, that's why we could ask ourselves if the scientific progress is always improving life. Trying to answer to this broad issue, I will focus myself on medical advances.

The scientific progress aim is to improve life conditions and to extend life. So, scientists work hard to find medical treatments which cures diseases, today huge revolutions was accomplished, for example with the elaboration of antibiotics like the penicilin discovered by Alexander Fleming, the elaboration of vaccines against complex diseases like Ebola or the elaboration of PGD. The « PreImplantation Genetic Diagnosis » is an embryo screening procedure invented for the purpose of identifying embryos that carry serious, often fatal, genetic diseases. But like it said in a CBS News report, it’s increasingly being used to help couples choose the sex of their baby. The original purpose of embryo screening was groundbreaking but now the new direction this procedure is taking is disturbing.

Indeed, some people object to this new thechnical. On the one hand, children became a commercial production because with selective breeding, parents can now choose the features of their baby. Everyone would like to have beautiful and intelligent children, so it could be dangerous for diversity. A risk highlighted by « The Odd Man Out », a cartoon showing a scene that takes place in a factory, where all men are muscular and they look alike, excepted one man who looks skinnier. The little man is thrown into a dumpster : we reject him because he is different. This cartoon shows us the limits of Eugenics, a science who use selective breeding to « improve » humanity.

On an other hand, people criticize the new genetics manipulations that appear with scientific progress for example the cloning. In the document called “ Science babies“, extract from the novel “Brave New World” written by Aldous Huxley, we can see a major scientific advance, which is cloning. The extract is focused the description of the scientific process of the production of babies. This process allows to clone many fertilized eggs so get thanks these genetic manipulations lots of brothers sisters twins. The goal of the progress is to produce scores of identical human beings. Science bows down to the wish for a perfect human being, but to some extent, we should remain critical of scientific progress, as it can also crush all forms of diversity.

To sum up, although science can be a benefit, it can also prove to be a burden. Thanks to the medical improvements, we can save lives, enhance life conditions and maybe in the future eradicate some genetic diseases. But we must be very careful and set up limits ans rules to draw a line between what is ethical and what is unethical.

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