The presence of science and technology in Spain dates back to Spain's prehistoric period. It is taken to include firstly an account of the historical development of these fields of study, and secondly a description of the current institutional and regulatory framework for continuing this development into the future.
History The scope of Spain's history with science and technology generally overlaps with the history of science and the history of technology of human history, particularly in Europe.José Manuel Sánchez Ron: Cincel, martillo y piedra. Historia de la ciencia en España. Madrid, Taurus, 1999. Leoncio López Ocón Breve Historia de la ciencia española Madrid: Alianza, 2003. . (Descarta la Edad Media (cristiana y musulmana), para iniciar el libro en el Renacimiento y la España imperial, con su auge y posterior decadencia en el Barroco). Manuel Desantes ¿Cómo que inventen ellos?. Conferencia: Un repaso de los últimos quinientos años de la historia de la ciencia y la tecnología en España explica el retraso estructural actual. El II Congreso de la sociedad española de historia de las ciencias (Jaca, 27 de septiembre–1 de octubre, 1982) fue dedicado a La ciencia y la técnica en España entre 1850 y 1936, teniendo entre otras, ponencias con estos títulos: Antonio Ferraz Perspectivas institucionales de la historia de la ciencia y de la técnica en España; Eduardo Ortiz Sobre la ciencia y la técnica en España en el siglo XIX; José Luis Peset La historia de la ciencia y de la técnica en el curriculum profesional del científico y del ingeniero. Classifying the degree of scientific, technical or technological notability of certain movements or inventions are established by the established discipline of studies in Science, Technology and Society (STS). Whilst scientific and technical activities are as old as the human race, instances of integrating systematic knowledge, material resources, skills and technical procedures to transform a production process through the application of a defined methodology surfaced at the start the late modern period; in the case of Spain, this came tragically late, in contrast to the verve with which she had become one of the first to enter the early modern period. Few Spanish scientists (excepting those such as Servet, Cajal or Ochoa) were instrumental in the paradigm shifts characteristic of successive scientific revolutions. As a consequence, in Spain the study of the history of science concerns itself mainly with the effects these paradigms had on reaching Spain, and the same is true of technology transfers. Science and technology in Spain, in the 19th century until the beginning of the 20th century, was such a "marginal feature of its administrative and social structures",Thomas F. Glick, Eugenio Portela Marco, Víctor Navarro Brotóns: La historia de la ciencia en España como realidad marginal en su organización y contexto social, Anthropos, 1982, Número 20, especial dedicado a José María López Piñero. ficha en dialnet that this very marginality came to be used as a sort of Spanish national stereotype, spread and celebrated by some foreign media, rejected as being pejorative or belittling but on occasion seized on with haughty pride, as in Miguel de Unamuno's immortal phrase, repeatedly used and abused ever since, on both sides of the argument, to the extent of becoming a literary motif or cliché:
Prehistory Given the absence of written sources, the reconstruction of aspects of pre-scientific and pre-technological thought has been attempted through analysis and interpretation of Paleolithic art – of which the Iberian peninsula possesses examples of exceptional value; through studies of stone-working techniques; and through anatomical reconstructions. James Frazer in The Golden Bough proposed similarities between the function of science and that of magic in primitive cultures and in the "primitive mind".Summary in John Lewis (1985), Antropología simplificada, Selector, , pp. 80–81 More recently André Leroi-Gourhan studied the topic from a structuralist perspective. The identification of "phases" through which human thought has passed in interpreting nature originate with the positivism of Auguste Comte – theological or fictive state; metaphysical or abstract state; and scientific or positivist state. Many other terms have been proposed: magical thinking, pre-philosophical thought, mythopoeic thoughtHenri Frankfort, Wilson and Jacobsen: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, 1946, later titled Before Philosophy, translated into Spanish as El Pensamiento Prefilosófico, FCE and others.
The pre-Neanderthal (Homo Heidelbergensis) finds at the Atapuerca site near Burgos in Spain offer one of the most promising directions for paleoanthropological research: to establish the degree of oral communication in that species by reconstruction of the sound-producing mechanism (hyoid) and hearing apparatus (bone structure and inner-ear cavity). This could be linked with other findings from the site, such as the deliberate accumulation of corpses. All this would necessitate consideration of the capacity for symbolic thought.Ignacio Martínez, Human Evolution conference, CTIF, Alcalá de Henares 29 April 2009Juan Luis Arsuaga, El collar del neandertal (En: The Neanderthal’s Necklace), El enigma de la esfinge (En: The Riddle of the Sphinx) and other works.
The theory of the "Neolithic Revolution" implies a diffusionist interpretation of the spread of innovations such as agriculture and pottery.José María Rodanés Vicente (2007) Neolithic, Cæsaraugusta, 78. pp. 49–66, , especially p. 52 et seq. On the other hand, it is argued that copper working at Los Millares (near Almería in Spain) during the Chalcolithic period (beginning of the third millennium BC) could have arisen independently, together with an increase in agricultural yields due to irrigation as seen at the Cerro de la Virgen de Orce site, as well as walled settlements and social stratification.El calcolítico en la Península Ibérica (España) (The Chalcolithic period in Iberia) in Artehistoria.
During the first civilisations in the Middle East, the part played by the "Far Western" regions in long-distance metal trading was vital for the development there of Bronze Age metallurgical techniques. Next, around 1000BC, Iron Age metallurgy was introduced simultaneously but independently to Iberia by Mediterranean colonisers (Greek and Phoenician) on the southern and eastern coasts, and by Celts from Central Europe in the centre, west and north. Less is known of the introduction of other technologies such as the wheel, the plough and the sail.
The Roman Period
Romanisation proliferated throughout Hispania, as shown in the construction techniques that gave rise to such completed structures as the Alcántara bridge or the Aqueduct of Segovia; a complex network of roads; the first dams for water storage (although whether these are in fact Roman is still under debate);Mérida. Una investigación de cinco años sobre la presa de Proserpina descarta su origen romano : Terrae Antiquae, 26 de abril de 2006 (quotes a range of sources) or different types of mining ranging from large-scale gold mines such as that at las Médulas to the extraction of lapis specularis.
Some of the most important scientists of the Hellenistic period came to Cádiz, such as Polybius, Artemidorus and Posidonius, who took the chance while there to make measurements of the tides (more visible in the Atlantic than in the Mediterranean) and suggest their causes.José María Blázquez, Corpus de mosaicos de España, CSIC, 1982, , p. 49.
Among the few still surviving Hispano-Latin names that wrote scientific topics at that time are Pomponius Mela from Algeciras, and Columella from Cádiz, both from the Baetica province. The former wrote De Chorographia, a work of geography, and the latter wrote Res rustica and Liber de arboribus, on agronomy. The following quotation from Columela shows clearly how the speculative nature of Greco-Roman scientific activity was disconnected from technology and manual work, reflecting the basic separation between the "otium" (leisure time) fitting for philosophers, and the world of "negotium" (commerce) and slavery.
Medieval science
It was in the Iberian peninsula that medieval science saw some of its greatest developments. These were achieved under both Christian and Muslim rule, with an important Jewish contribution. Already during the "Dark Ages", some of the few scholars were located within the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo and Hispanic monasticism: in particular San Isidoro with his Etymologiae.
The transition from feudalism to capitalism implied technological changes driven forward or hindered by the different socio-economic structures, which in Spain were made manifest in the different forms of innovation in agriculture, livestock farming, food production and other crafts. In some cases these were promoted by institutions – monasteries or craft guilds; in other cases they arose from within the productive activities themselves, which to a greater or less extent kept their "trade secrets" and in the stratified society of the time were deprecated as "vile and mechanical trades".Díez, Fernando (1990) Viles y mecánicos. Trabajo y sociedad en la Valencia preindustrial (Vile and mechanical: work and society in pre-industrial Valencia). Valencia, Edicions Alfons el Maganànim.Mª Rosario Caballero Carrillo y Pedro Miralles Martínez (2002) El trabajo de la infancia y la juventud en la época del Barroco. El caso de la seda murciana (Child and youth labour in the Baroque period: the example of the silk industry in Murcia) The most spectacular examples of the technology of this period are the water wheels of South-eastern Spain, together with other irrigation techniques introduced or perfected by the Arab-Hispanic civilisation.
The incorporation of the later medieval kingdoms of Spain into European trade routes between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean stimulated not only seafaring technology and the associated map-making and astronomical studies, but also the introduction of new commercial and financial institutions. Examples from the Kingdom of Aragón include trading halls (:es:Lonja de la Seda), money-changing tables (Taula de canvi), and codes of law governing maritime trade (:es:Consulado del mar); and from the Kingdom of Castile, trade fairs such as those of Medina del Campo, Medina de Rioseco and Villalón, where the first bills of exchange were drawn up.Fundación Museo de las Ferias. Documents from the fairs of Medina del Campo, Villalón and Medina de Rioseco, 2002
Early modern science
The effects of the conquest of the Americas on Spain – in particular the negative effects of inflation, reduction in incentives for productive investment, and social and ideological conservatism – that led to the growth of Spanish economic science. One of its fundamental texts, by Tomás de Mercado, is titled (On deals and contracts) (1571), paraphrasing the title of St Thomas Aquinas' work Summa theologica.