How can we ensure that scientific and technical progress becomes synonymous with human progress?

Resumen

The article examines how scientific and technical progress can truly become synonymous with human progress, rather than turning against humanity itself. The author starts from the observation that scientific advances have given human beings unprecedented power, capable of making the Earth uninhabitable or of destroying it, as exemplified by nuclear arsenals. Consequently, the central question becomes ethical: how can science and technology be guided so that they serve human life and the common good?The author argues that scientific practice, in its very essence, is already grounded in an ethics of responsibility, expressed methodologically through openness to experience. This option entails submitting hypotheses to the test of facts, accepting the revision of theories, and avoiding arbitrariness. Such an attitude is not only scientific; it is also a condition for rational dialogue and social life, since it allows for fairer decisions based on shareable evidence.The author criticizes conceptions that reduce nature to a mere object of unlimited exploitation, often simplistically attributed to thinkers such as Descartes, Galileo, and Newton. Thus, the problem does not lie in modern science itself, but in the capture of scientific research by politicomilitary and economicfinancial interests, especially in the context of a global economy oriented exclusively toward profit. This appropriation diverts science from its responsible instance and prevents its progress from being transformed into human progress.As an alternative, the author advocates an economic and social model guided by an ethics of responsibility, committed to social justice, environmental preservation, and human rights, including those of future generations. Within this horizon, science must contribute to addressing planetary challenges such as climate warming and the loss of biodiversity. Drawing inspiration from the legacy of the Enlightenment and the reflections of Ferdinand Gonseth, the article finally emphasizes that scientific knowledge is always provisional and revisable, and that it should be evaluated according to its adequacy to reality rather than according to an absolute notion of truth.