Battle of the Ancients and Moderns

I have always been torn between the options of keeping things stagnant, preserving the livelihood of a culture and that of boldly adopting advancements in civilisation that bring about modern comforts and ideologies.

I deliberately choose not to use the word conservation and progress because I have been told repeatedly by many people that conservation may sometime well be progress (e.g. preserving traditions that provides stronger ties within a community) and personally, I have not figured out what big words such as 'conservation', 'revitalisation' and 'progress' means to our (yet another big word) 'civilisation'.

Hopefully by the time I finish this essay, I will have more answers or more unanswered question.

God, I love the feeling of self research, you slack off all day, start your boring reading and suddenly come across materials from the seventeenth century that addresses historical issues that is relevant to our contemporary world.

Here's the essay title:

6. Explain what you understand by the 'Battle of the Ancients and Moderns' and its significance for architecture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

How does it relate to our contemporary world? I don't know about the architectural side yet, but the Battle of the Ancients and the Moderns started as a philosophical and literary debate and gradually branched off to other areas.

Do we hold the traditional study of classical antiquity with high esteem or do we disregard the past and embrace a new age of scientific enquiry?

'What debate? How does it relate to our times?' You may ask.

First thing that came to my mind was Dolly, the first cloned sheep. Do we champion age old morals of not trying to play 'God' and or do we acknowledge the wondrous scientific progress brought to mankind?

I'm still torn between the two, but in a good puzzled way.