I'm going to talk about
the idea of progress. This theme evokes the progressive development
of humankind. To illustrate the notion I have chosen four documents
because I think that they show very good the theme of idea of
progress. So we might ask us what are the texts which show the
advantages and drawbacks of the progress ? To explain that we'll see
some documents : the first is “odd man out”, the second is
“science babies” and the last is “design your baby” (he is
composed of two texts)
In a first time, I'm
going to explain “odd man out”. It's a picture which represents
four muscular men on a conveyor belt but a man is different : he is
skinny and weak. We can see a giant claw that is grabbing the man
who is in the middle and rejecting him. We can imagine that he will
be throw away in the skip in the foreground of the picture. In this
bin we can see a lot of men with flaws ; they are rejecting because
of their defects. This picture is an example of selecting breading.
The cartoonist wants to see us that it's as if humans were created in
a factory, and he criticize selective breading. He wants to shows
that scientist will be likely to create the perfect man or woman.
In a second time, I'm
going to see “science babies”. This document is an article
written by Aldous Huxley. This article was published in 1932. This
text talks about test-tube babies : they are inside a kind of glass
eggs, scientists try to eliminate abnormalities to fabricate millions
of identical “twins”. For the scientist, this work is wonderful
and amazing, he seems to be emotional, for him it's progress. A lot
of people would disagree with that because it's not natural, with
this innovation maybe everyone would think the same thoughts. The
author denounces the attitude of scientists, this situation
represents human stupidity because they wouldn't have feeling or
personal identity, they wouldn't be really human, more like robots or
machines.
In a last time we will
explain “design your baby”. This document is divided into two
texts :
-The text A is an article
from internet newspapers published on January 29, 2010 about designer
babies. This text explain that scientific procedures are compared to
a fast food order : parents can choose their baby's gender, hair
colour, health and intelligence ( but only rich people can have the
best babies). The author wants to show that genetic modification is a
reality today, it's a science fact, it's really happening today? And
readers can understood that is useless to do that.
-The text B is an article
from a newspaper, published on October 1, 2010 about genetic
screening. This text shows us that designer babies are also useful
because they save lives. The author takes an example, that of Molly
who needed some marrow to survive, so the scientists picked out her
brother to save her. With this text, readers understood that
sometimes genetic screening represent a necessary choice of life or
death, so scientists try to get a healthy baby.
To conclude, all of the
texts talk about scientific progress and the picture talks about
social progress. “Odd man out” evokes a reality about the
standardization if the society, this picture denounce a few-things.”
Science babies” talks about test-tube babies, he shows the
drawbacks of scientific progress : scientists create the same persons
it's a form of distopia because we wouldn't have a feeling or a
personal identity. “ Design your baby” evokes the possibilities
of “choose” your baby. To me, it's a bit useless but the second
text talks about the health of the baby : they can picked out marrow
to save lives for example, to my mind, it's very useful.
Finally, we can say that
texts about “design your baby” show the advantages of scientific
progress and “science babies” shows the drawbacks. “ Odd man
out” shows a little bit drawbacks but it's more a reality. To
finish, we can ask us where will go the progress ?
No comments:
Post a Comment