James Randerson asks this question, but actually leaving only four slots open as "...If anyone plans not to include Darwin I'm going to have to ask them to step outside." a sentiment with which Peter McGrath agrees. So - your Top 5?
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I am the Online Community Manager at PLoS-ONE (Public Library of Science). My job is to try to motivate you to comment on the papers there. My scientific specialty is chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution. You can contact me at: Coturnix@gmail.com
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Top Five Dead Scientists
Category: History of Science
Posted on: August 24, 2007 7:53 AM, by Coturnix
Comments
Well, there's Newton and Maxwell for a start, and Einstein is kinda hard to overlook...
Nah, sorry, the more I think about it, the more I realise I can't just pick 5. There's too many, even if you limit it to physicists.
Posted by: Dunc | August 24, 2007 9:06 AM
Galileo Galilei would top any list I made. I'd probably agree about Charles Darwin, but I'd be hard-pressed to narrow it down to only three more. Carolus Linnaeus? Richard Owen? Joseph Hooker? And that selection is definitely showing my biology bias...
Posted by: Christopher Taylor | August 24, 2007 11:04 AM
I too can't possibly narrow this down to just 5. But taking a looooong view, I think the likes of Archimedes, Aristotle and Galen must deserve at least honorable mention.
Posted by: bob koepp | August 24, 2007 11:22 AM
Darwin would definitely have to top my list, and I would add Marie Curie as well...as for the other three slots, it's hard to choose...DaVinci comes to mind as , being an example of an excellent mind, but I suppose there are others that have made milestone contributions that might deserve his spot instead, it depends upon your perspective of criteria for being in the Top Five. Watson & Crick seem like they should warrant a spot... it's very hard to pick, but Darwin and Curie, and probably E.O. Wilson would be the most solid on my list, the others would depend upon specific criteria, I think.
Posted by: Anne-Marie | August 24, 2007 11:34 AM
And I'm well 'ard. So Darwin plus four it is.
Posted by: Peter McGrath | August 24, 2007 11:35 AM
I don't think there is any doubt or question about the top 3. Beyond that, one can argue.
1. Newton
2. Darwin
3. Einstein
4. Schroedinger
6. Archimedes
Posted by: SLC | August 24, 2007 4:30 PM
Mendel's gotta be considered.
Posted by: PhysioProf | August 24, 2007 4:47 PM
Edward Jenner. His science made more difference to people's lives than anyone else on the list so far.
Posted by: anon | August 24, 2007 5:28 PM
(s/c)ould also go with Louis Pasteur
Posted by: anon | August 24, 2007 5:29 PM
Which dead scientist has the highest impact factor, so to speak? Who is most cited? I'm guessing Darwin is up there...
Posted by: Jennifer Jacquet | August 24, 2007 7:37 PM
I recommend that Nicolai Copernicus and Galileo Galilei be disqualified on the grounds their support for a heliocentric Solar System was theological and not scientific. And that it is their obstinancy in the face of evidence contradicting their model that helped delay the adoption of a proper scientific heliocentric model.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | August 24, 2007 8:27 PM
Einstein, Darwin, Newton. Galileo. Pasteur, certainly. Do mathematicians count as scientists, at least this time? Then I'd add John von Neumann. That's 6, I know.
Anyway, a point to be discussed in order to make such a list, is whether the tree must be judged on the basis of the fruits. What about brilliant minds that followed wrong paths (for reasons that were good at their times), or died too soon, or whatever? On the other hand: what about those who found great things just because they stumbled upon them, o because they happened to be in the right time at the right spot? (This may be the case of Jenner, though I don't know enough about him to say).
Posted by: dileffante | August 25, 2007 3:36 PM
Norman Borlaug?
Posted by: carolyn | August 31, 2007 9:52 AM
comon' Nikola Tesla got to be in a list.
Posted by: Dejan | August 31, 2007 10:55 AM
Especially if you change the contest the way John Hawks suggests, Tesla should be on the list as the world would look very different today if it was not for him.
Posted by: coturnix | August 31, 2007 12:14 PM
This is what the list will look like in 1000 years:
G. Cantor
C. Darwin
L. Boltzmann
W. Heisenberg
C. Shannon
Posted by: mnjam | September 10, 2007 10:12 PM
1. Isaac Newton
2. Adam Smith
3. Charles Darwin
4. James Clerk Maxwell
5. Simon Laplace
After Newton the mechanicist view of nature really took off (by contrast to the divine intervention view). Smith showed that human society is a self-organizing entity that can appear and evolve naturally; society no longer was seen as mimicking the order in the heavens (as people thought during the Middle Ages), which lead to the modern views about the possibility of social change and social justice. Darwin showed that life forms can appear and evolve naturally (no divine guiding hand); this is also the basis of all modern medicine. Maxwell unified electricity, magnetism and light and basically the whole modern technology is based on that. Laplace created the modern theory of probability and, among other things, he showed that Newton's law of gravity is truly sufficient for the Solar System to work as it does (Newton thought that God's attention is still required to keep it stable).
Posted by: Vlad | September 11, 2007 4:53 AM