Re: [asa] History of Science article

The author states that Western science owes many advances to al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham. While not wishing to minimize what he did, I've always heard that Western scientists made these advances independently. You don't really owe a debt to someone unless you've received something from him. What's the evidence that Newton et al. knew about al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham's accomplishments? Newton can't have "stood on his shoulders" if he hadn't heard of him.

Don
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Christine Smith<mailto:christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com>
  To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Monday, January 05, 2009 6:03 AM
  Subject: [asa] History of Science article

  Hi all,

  Thought you'd find this BBC article of interest--any history-of-science buffs out there want to comment on this?

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7810846.stm<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7810846.stm>

  In Christ,
  Christine (ASA member)

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Received on Tue Jan 6 09:35:10 2009