científico

científico, member of a group of officials, serving from the early 1890s in Porfirio Díaz’s regime (1876–1911) in Mexico, who were influenced by Positivism, the philosophy of the Frenchman Auguste Comte. Rejecting metaphysics, theology, and idealism as means of solving national problems, the científicos advocated what they considered to be the practical application of scientific methods, specifically those of the social sciences, to problems of finance, industrialization, and education.

The founders of the group were Rosendo Pineda and Manuel Romero Rubio. In 1895 José Yves Limantour, the son of a French immigrant and finance minister since 1893, became leader of the circle. He pressed government officials to concentrate on efficiency and did much himself to improve the financial footing of the country. The learned Justo Sierra became minister of education and continued the educational reforms according to Positivist principles initiated in the 1870s by Gabino Barreda, a student of Comte and member of Benito Juárez’s government. In 1910 Sierra reopened the National University for the first time in almost a century of national independence. The científicos furnished Díaz’s dictatorship, which they upheld as a bulwark against anarchy, with a prestigious facade, as the army and the rurales (federal police) provided it with its foundation. Díaz, however, had little rapport with these intellectuals. Because of their influence, wealth, and favouritism toward foreign capitalists, the científicos were objects of popular disfavour, while Díaz himself tried to cultivate the confidence of the uneducated masses. These científicos were rejected and eclipsed when the Díaz regime fell in the Revolution of 1911.

During the ascendancy of Plutarco Elías Calles, both as president and former president (1924–34), another group, also called científicos, came to power; they advocated the use of modern business methods to benefit both themselves and the nation, while stressing self-enrichment.

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Porfiriato: The científicos, land, and labour

The Positivist movement also took root in other Latin American countries, influencing government and education in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.