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Etienne Klein is Director of Research at the CEA. Speech given as part of the Summer University on Sciences, Ethics and Society 2013, organized by Espace éthique/Ile-de-France on June 11 and 12, 2013, under the High Patronage of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. Behind the general idea of progress, whatever the specific definition given, we always find the conviction that we can relativize the "negative", that the "pure negative" does not exist, because it is never anything but the ferment of the best. The negative is considered as that on which we can act to get it out of itself, that is to say, precisely, out of its negativity. Declaring oneself progressive or modern therefore means believing that negativity contains a driving energy that we can use to transform it into something other than itself. But it seems that this hope has faded: we have entered the "after" of this idea, an irreversible phase of criticism and doubt. Some speak of "postmodernity." But how can we define it? Perhaps by saying that postmodernity is modernity minus the illusion. The illusion in question here was that of the possibility of a final, definitive state, where there would be nothing left to do but continue, to repeat, without having to make as much effort as was made to reach this state. We will try to see, using concrete examples, how this shift produces effects on the relations between science and society.