Okay. Other than Earth, are there any real contenders?
Mars
Venus
Death Star
Vulcan
Hollywood
A lot of people really got their panties in a bunch over the idea that there is a “consensus” “best” anything, as if saying “The Mona Lisa is generally considered the world’s greatest/most famous painting” somehow devalues the entire concept of comparative art, yada yada yada.
There’s also an interesting subcategory which is people who are completely and unquestionably the best ever in their field, but their field is one obscure enough that they are not actually famous, a good example being checkers player Marion Tinsley.
Someone really needs to write a web app which automates this whole process. It’s both fun and fascinating, but collation is a big pain in the butt. (This is more or less the same as the Family Feud threads from a year or so back, and is also more or less the same as the game What Were You Thinking?.)
Well, if one narrows down the category enough, it will be possible to force agreement (Most Famous Space probe launched between 1975 and 1978 should get a certain amount of agreement, for example.) but leaving thing general enough to be interesting, will leave room for surprise answers.
I suspect however, we’d get only one or two front runners with the following questions:
Most Famous Photographer I’d guess either Matthew Brady or Ansel Adams would take this one.
Most Famous Playwright Shakespeare, though some Francophiles might try to get Moliere in there.
Most Famous Architect Frank Lloyd Wright
I can’t really come to a useful list of ten general categories that would get such agreement. Honestly, it doesn’t interest me, either. I prefer to suggest things that I know will get a large field of responses.