On Averroes

It is ironic that the man whom Europeans came to regard as one of the most influential Arab scientists and philosophers of the Middle Ages, was not exactly appreciated in his homeland.

Ibn Rushd (1126—1198), was a native of Cordoba, in Andalusian Spain, and his work covered a broad range of topics in medicine, science and philosophy. He would be known to Thomas Aquinas and other European scholars in the next century as Averroes. And Ibn Rushd was—thanks to Aquinas—destined to have a much greater impact on the European mind than he ever did on Islamic culture.

First, a little context.

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Jennifer Fulwiler's New Book

Over at Forbes, my review of Something Other than God.

Cloning for Stem Cells Advances

Generating robust stem cells via SCNT, also called therapeutic cloning, was not considered a practical option before the breakthroughs by Mitalipov, Egli et al. The approach was further tainted by the scandal surrounding Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk’s claims of success in cloning cell lines in 2005. A majority of scientists and the public also believe that reproductive cloning should be banned. (The U.S. still has no law that outlaws reproductive cloning.)

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