What Is Progress

Today, many believe that progress is a word to be avoided, a relic from a past, the dangerous product of an era of intellectual naivety that would be best forgotten. Yet, the idea of progress is rooted in a human impulse that is both profound and essential, a way of interpreting history without which our ability to plan the future-and our very identity-would be at stake.

Written just before the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic-which is now putting its argument to the hardest of tests-this lucid essay explores how science and technology have been, and can still be, a powerful engine for human advancement.