Does the idea of progress still apply to our times? If so, what does progress really mean?

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, 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 and humane advancement.