Social Progress, Research Paper Example

Social progress is linked to technological development. The industrial revolution has been perceived as global historical watershed although the timeworn proclivity to hold on the industrial technologies as the most significant has resulted to confusion in coherent understanding of expansive commercial expansion that came after the Renaissance (Misa, p.13). The Renaissance was associated with technological creativity that gave rise to the courts and the city states which were a source of employment were to engineers although they had little interests in technologies that were allied to commerce and industries. They only had the dreams of technologies of that era that revolved around warfare, courtly entertainments, building of cities as well as dynastic displays (Misa, p.36). This is an indication that, social progress is linked to technological development. Addressing scientific issues requires experiments because the determination of a problem must be based on experience. This is followed by attempts to proof the reason behind action of bodies in a particular way. All research in nature must follow such an approach (Misa, p.36).

Technology is closely linked to tradition and therefore social progress. In most cases, technology is perceived as as irreversible, cumulative as well as permanent but this has not always been the true scenario. Most technologies have been embedded and linked to culture to which the belonged. The middle Ages were referred to as ‘dark ages’ as a result of lack of contact among the Western Europeans to the Romans and the Greece classical civilizations. The Romans and the Greece had reserved immense scientific, technological and medical knowledge in their libraries that could be of use by the Western Europeans (Misa, p.49). Transferring technological knowledge prior to Renaissance could as well have been a game of hit-or-miss.