Ibero-American Perspectives
To introduce a Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking perspective on science, technology, and ethics is difficult and somewhat artificial. From the beginning it must be acknowledged that Spain and Portugal on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe together with the more than twenty Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries that can be identified in the Americas compose a heterogeneous group. In many respects differences outweigh similarities. Nevertheless, the differences are perhaps no greater than those present in other large-scale linguistic or cultural perspectives such as are represented by Africa, China, or India. Provided that this introduction is not taken as a substitute for more particular assessments of the situations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and Venezuela (to mention only a dozen of the most populous countries), it may serve to highlight some modest commonalities that do in fact exist.
Context
Understanding relations between science, technology, and ethics in the Ibero-American countries requires some appreciation of the historical relations between Spain and Portugal on the Iberian peninsula and those countries in the Americas that emerged from Iberian colonization. The sixteenth and seventeenth century Iberian colonizations of the Americas brought with them ideals of the Counter Reformation rather than the ideals of liberalism the practice of exclusion that were more characteristic of English colonialism.
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