Greatest Scientists Ever: Elimination Game

Thread Games
221

I’ll admit I was hoping for more fervent debate — or irate arguments :smiley: — in this thread! :slight_smile:

For example, among 25 nominated scientists born before Galileo, only six are left:Archimedes
Copernicus
Eratosthenes
Euclid
Ptolemy
Vesalius, Andreas
If I were voting I’d have been placing frantic KEEP votes on Alhazen, Francis Bacon, Galen, Hipparchus, and especially Aristotle. (And possibly sentimental favorites like Leonardo da Vinci, Pythagoras, and perhaps even Giordano Bruno.)

The early elimination of Aristotle — one of the very most influential scientists ever —was a huge mistake. Sure, he got some things wrong, but so did 18th- and 19th-century greats. His insights into geology were millenia ahead of his time, and biology even more so — his insight about the octopus’ arm being an organ of reproduction was disbelieved until the 19th century.

Oh well — it’s not too late. :stuck_out_tongue: Hopefully there will be plenty of scope for irate disputes before we finally select the Greatest Scientist of All Time.

222

Here are my thoughts on (((Maurice Hilleman))). AFAIK, he discovered no major theories: his talent was applying what was already known. In Kuhn’s terms he established no paradigms: rather he engaged in normal science. He developed over 40 vaccines; of the 14 ones in the standard vaccine schedule, he developed eight.

I think a guy like that belongs in the top 100. After all, normal science is what makes the new theories worthwhile. And Hilleman was extraordinarily productive.

I’m less sure he belongs in the top 36. And personally, putting him in the top 10 seems inappropriate to me.

Full disclosure: (((Hilleman))) is not on any of the lists in the website below.
Then again (((John von Neumann))) was on only 1 of the lists (ranked 51 though).

Ok, I took the top 20 from the first list on this webpage and eliminated them from our current list of candidates. (Some had already been eliminated.) Here are the remaining scientists on the chopping block in spoilers

[spoiler] Possible candidates for the ax:
Agassiz, Louis - biology, geology
Archimedes - math, physics
Boyle, Robert - chemistry, physics
Crick, Francis - Dna
Curie, Marie - radioactivity
Dalton, John - chemistry
Eratosthenes - math, astronomy
Euclid - math
Euler, Leonhard - math
Fermat, Pierre de - math, optics
Fermi, Enrico - atomic physics
Feynman, Richard - physics
Franklin, Benjamin - physics, etc.
Franklin, Rosalind - chemistry, X-ray crystallography
Gauss, Karl - math, astronomy
Hilleman, Maurice - biology, vaccination; saved more lives
Hubble, Edwin - astronomy
Hutton, James - geologist
Huygens, Christiaan - optics, physics
Leakey, Louis - anthropology
Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van - microbiology, microscopy
Leibnitz, Gottfried - math, physics, etc.
Linnaeus, Carolus - botany, taxonomy
Meitner, Lise - atomic physics
Mendel, Gregor - genetics
Mendeleev, Dmitri - chemistry
Neumann, John von - computer science, etc.
Pauli, Wolfgang - quantum physics
Planck, Max - quantum physics
Ptolemy - astronomy
Salk, Jonas - medicine, vaccination
Tesla, Nicolai - physics, invention
Turing, Alan - computer science, etc.
Vesalius, Andreas - founder of anatomical sciences
Volta, Alessandro - chemistry, physics
Watson, James - Dna

And here are the scientists on just one list or no list:

Agassiz, Louis - biology, geology (just on 1 list)
Eratosthenes (just on 1 list)
Fermat - not on any of the lists.
Hutton - not on any of the lists
Leakey, Louis - not on any of the lists. Huh. (((Boas))) is #14 though.
Leibnitz - not on any of the lists (the hell?)
Meitner - just on 1 list
Pauli, Wolfgang - on none of the lists
Ptolemy - only on 1 list
Tesla - only on 1 list
Turing - only on 1 list

John Von Neumann - just on 1 list (the hell?), but ranked number 51.
Maurice Hilleman - not on any of the lists.

[/spoiler]

Keep
Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van - microbiology, microscopy

Eliminate:
Agassiz, Louis - biology, geology (just on 1 list)
Eratosthenes (just on 1 list)
Fermat - not on any of the lists.
Hutton - not on any of the lists
Leakey, Louis - not on any of the lists. Huh. (((Boas))) is #14 though.
Meitner - just on 1 list
Pauli, Wolfgang - on none of the lists
Ptolemy - only on 1 list
Tesla - only on 1 list

223

Ok, after we get the top 50 sorted out, which DNA discoverer will be the first to go? (((Watson))) or (((Crick)))?

224

Perhaps both of them, since it seems most of the credit should have gone to their female colleague (whose name I have, to my shame, forgotten)?

225

The number of votes each player gets will be continually reduced as the game progresses and has already been reduced to NINE total (see above), of which at most eight can be Evict votes.

Sorry, Measure — too many votes. Subject to change by you, I’ll ignore the vote on Agassiz this round.

226

I had a thought about the vulnerability of the earlier scientists (both because of the greater difficulty of their work surviving, and the fact that ground-breaking insights seem “obvious” to us as we have grown up with them) - possibly now that the List is more manageable we could do a re-order by birth-date instead of alphabetically? (If I was feeling really motivated I’d do it myself … throwing all the work back on the game-master here…) This could make it easier, when considering the List as a whole, to spot Big Steps Up as they occur.

(oh yeah, and … I’m baa…aack. We got 400km, got sunburned, exhausted and rained on, then got flooded out and had to be bussed home 2 days early. It was awesome :D)

Also - pronoun check - I’m a she. Not remotely offended … kind of interested though, I always thought my “-a” ending pigeonholed me correctly.

227

Oops.

Keep
Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van - microbiology, microscopy

Eliminate:
Agassiz, Louis - biology, geology (just on 1 list)
Eratosthenes (just on 1 list)
Fermat - not on any of the lists.
Hutton - not on any of the lists
Leakey, Louis - not on any of the lists. Huh. (((Boas))) is #14 though.
Pauli, Wolfgang - on none of the lists
Ptolemy - only on 1 list
Tesla - only on 1 list

228

Rosalind Franklin, who happily is on the list. Wilkins is not though.

This link characterizes all 4 as discoverers of DNA:

Here’s a proposed ordering: Watson, Franklin, Crick, Wilkins. Comments?

Yeah, another week would be good. The list is almost but not quite manageable now. Might be nice to take a break some time in the 40s.

229

I would move Wilkins up a bit in your list. Watson was clearly a key figure, and the one most responsible for bringing the key threads of the DNA hunt together (much though I personally think the guy’s a dick … but, not what we’re voting on). Crick’s strength seems to be that he generally got on well with everyone, worked well in a team, and could link up the various different bits of research that were necessary for the program to succeed. I see him more as the “right place at the right time” guy.

According to various accounts I’ve seen (eg here) there was a fundamental problem between Wilkins and Franklin, that she was told she’d be in charge of the DNA X-ray crystallography, and he was told she’d be his assistant. So a management failure got in their way, which probably shouldn’t be held against them as scientists.

My ordering is Watson, Franklin=Wilkins, Crick

Incidentally, in reading up more about this I discovered X-ray crystallographer and Nobel laureate Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin who I now wish I’d known about in time to nominate for The List, because arguably she may be more deserving than either Franklin *or * Wilkins. She was an early pioneer of X-ray crystallography of proteins, and had worked her way through Vitamin B12, penicillin and cholesterol by the time the DNA team got going, so some of her work was quite foundational to the whole technique they were using. Her most imressive achievement was probably insulin which took thirty-four years to unravel - an impressive scientific concentration span by anyone’s measure!

230

OK, as it turns out, I was motivated.

In case it helps anyone else, here is The List in chronological order (by birth):

~300 BC Euclid - math
287 BC Archimedes - math, physics
267 BC Eratosthenes - math, astronomy
~100 AD Ptolemy - astronomy
1473 Copernicus, Nicolas - astronomy
1514 Vesalius, Andreas - founder of anatomical sciences
1564 Galileo - physics, astronomy, etc.
1571 Kepler, Johannes - astronomy, math
1607 Fermat, Pierre de - math, optics
1627 Boyle, Robert - chemistry, physics
1629 Huygens, Christiaan - optics, physics
1632 Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van - microbiology, microscopy
1642 Newton, Sir Isaac - math, physics
1646 Leibnitz, Gottfried - math, physics, etc.
1706 Franklin, Benjamin - physics, etc.
1707 Euler, Leonhard - math
1707 Linnaeus, Carolus - botany, taxonomy
1726 Hutton, James - geologist
1743 Lavoisier, Antoine - chemistry
1745 Volta, Alessandro - chemistry, physics
1766 Dalton, John - chemistry
1777 Gauss, Karl - math, astronomy
1791 Faraday, Michael - electromagnetism, etc.
1807 Agassiz, Louis - biology, geology
1809 Darwin, Charles - biology
1813 Bernard, Claude - physiology
1822 Mendel, Gregor - genetics
1822 Pasteur, Louis - chemistry, biology
1831 Maxwell, James Clerk - physics
1834 Mendeleev, Dmitri - chemistry
1856 Tesla, Nicolai - physics, invention
1858 Planck, Max - quantum physics
1858 Boas, Franz - anthropology
1867 Curie, Marie - radioactivity
1871 Rutherford, Ernest - nuclear physics, atomic theory, radioactivity.
1878 Meitner, Lise - atomic physics
1879 Einstein, Albert - physics
1885 Bohr, Niels - atomic physics
1889 Hubble, Edwin - astronomy
1900 Pauli, Wolfgang - quantum physics
1901 Pauling, Linus - chemistry
1901 Fermi, Enrico - atomic physics
1901 Heisenberg, Werner - quantum theory
1903 Leakey, Louis - anthropology
1903 Neumann, John von - computer science, etc.
1912 Turing, Alan - computer science, etc.
1914 Salk, Jonas - medicine, vaccination
1916 Crick, Francis - Dna
1918 Feynman, Richard - physics
1919 Hilleman, Maurice - biology, vaccination; saved more lives
1920 Franklin, Rosalind - chemistry, X-ray crystallography
1928 Watson, James - Dna

231

Greatest Geologist:
Might be ((Hutton)). But probably (((Charles Lyell))), who dropped out. :frowning:
No mention of ((Agassiz))

https://www.ranker.com/list/notable-geologist_s)/reference
Greatest Anthropologist:
(((Leakey))) didn’t make this list of 9:
https://www.quora.com/Who-is-the-greatest-anthropologist-ever
Didn’t make this list, though ((Mary Leakey)) did:
https://www.ranker.com/list/notable-anthropologist_s)/reference

Greatest Biologist: List of 10:

(((Aristotle))), ((Leeuwenhoek)) make the list. So does Hooke, discoverer of the cell, who wasn’t on the original list. Glad to see (((Linnaeus))) the taxonomer. (((Darwin))) and ((Mendel)) of course. Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of evolution gets a mention. ((Watson/Crick)). Wilmut & Campbell (first cloners of a mammal) is a silly entry in my view. Might of been fun to include them in the orignal list though.

No mention of ((Agassiz)). Not sure why he made the list of 136. Corruption! Bribery! :smiley:

Greatest Mathematician
This website puts (((Euler))) in the #1 slot and (((Gauss))) in #2. Riemann, who didn’t make our list, is number 3. I’m wondering whether Gauss’ statistical work would give him an edge over Euler science-wise, though both made enormous contributions. Top 10 Greatest Mathematicians - Listverse

No mention of (((Fermat)))

232

I’d like to recommend to others to add ((Leakey)), ((Fermat)), and especially ((Agassiz)) to their elimination lists. I’d rather not eliminate 2 ancient astronomers in one go. So I’m going to pass over (((Eratosthenes))) who managed to measure the size of the earth within 211 miles before freaking 200BC. (((Ptolemy))), who lived from 90-168 AD, argued for his namesake failed astronomical model, thinking that the sun revolved around the earth. Sad!

((Claude Bernard)) was one of the first to advocate blind experiments, a cornerstone of the scientific method, a phrase which he used and devoted his life to advancing within medicine.

So, Updated list:

Keep
Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van - microbiology, microscopy
Bernard, Claude Claude Bernard - Wikipedia

Eliminate:
Agassiz, Louis - biology, geology (just on 1 list)
Fermat - not on any of the lists.
Hutton - not on any of the lists
Leakey, Louis - not on any of the lists. Huh. (((Boas))) is #14 though.
Pauli, Wolfgang - on none of the lists
Ptolemy - only on 1 list
Tesla - only on 1 list

It’s only going to get more difficult!

233

Scientists currently with 2 or more active votes:Pauli, Wolfgang : 3
Ptolemy : 3

Agassiz, Louis : 2
Dalton, John : 2
Fermat, Pierre de : 2
Hilleman, Maurice : 2
Hutton, James : 2
Bernard, Claude : 3-1 = 1.99
Leakey, Louis : 3-1 = 1.99
Tesla, Nicolai : 3-1 = 1.99

Meitner, Lise : 2-2 = 0
Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van : 1-2 = -1
Franklin, Benjamin : 1-4 = -3

Let me appeal to active players for advice on the rules:
(1) Some of the votes (incl. an Evict for each of Ptolemy and Bernard) are from players who haven’t participated for several rounds. Should I just cancel leftover votes from players who haven’t posted within the last, say, 2 weeks?
(2) I’d prefer not to eliminate any with just two Evict votes (so Pauli and Ptolemy would be the only evictions, if votes don’t change) but we may need to lower that bar if participation continues to be low. What do others think?

234

There are better lists of greatest mathematicians on the 'Net. :slight_smile:
The one you mention omits Archimedes. :eek:

235

Evict:

Bernard, Claude - physiology
Boas, Franz - anthropology
Dalton, John - chemistry
Feynman, Richard - physics
Franklin, Benjamin - physics, etc.
Franklin, Rosalind - chemistry, X-ray crystallography
Maxwell, James Clerk - physics
Meitner, Lise - atomic physics
Pauli, Wolfgang - quantum physics

236

The vote allowance is now NINE votes, of which at most EIGHT may be Evict votes.

@ Professor — You show Nine evict votes. You must remove one. (If you don’t cancel one of these votes by the 1 PM deadline, I will exercise Mod tie-breaking power and choose which one to delete!)

237

Okay, don’t EVICT Benjamin Franklin.

Sorry for the error.

238

Elimination Round #12 is over. The three with 3 votes are eliminated:[del]Dalton, John - chemistry[/del]
[del]Pauli, Wolfgang - quantum physics[/del]
[del]Ptolemy - astronomy[/del]

The next Vote-counting Elimination will be on Wednesday, Dec. 6 at about 1 pm EST.
For the next round each player has nine votes total: seven Evict votes, one Keep vote, and a ninth vote which can be spent as either Evict or Keep.
This will be the last round with nine votes; the vote allotment will be reduced as the game progresses.

After the Wednesday elimination, I plan on just one further elimination before the Holiday break; we’ll resume in January.

There are now just 49 scientists remaining on the list, shown in a Spoiler:Agassiz, Louis - biology, geology
Archimedes - math, physics
Bernard, Claude - physiology
Boas, Franz - anthropology
Bohr, Niels - atomic physics
Boyle, Robert - chemistry, physics
Copernicus, Nicolas - astronomy
Crick, Francis - Dna
Curie, Marie - radioactivity
Darwin, Charles - biology
Einstein, Albert - physics
Eratosthenes - math, astronomy
Euclid - math
Euler, Leonhard - math
Faraday, Michael - electromagnetism, etc.
Fermat, Pierre de - math, optics
Fermi, Enrico - atomic physics
Feynman, Richard - physics
Franklin, Benjamin - physics, etc.
Franklin, Rosalind - chemistry, X-ray crystallography
Galileo - physics, astronomy, etc.
Gauss, Karl - math, astronomy
Heisenberg, Werner - quantum theory
Hilleman, Maurice - biology, vaccination; saved more lives
Hubble, Edwin - astronomy
Hutton, James - geologist
Huygens, Christiaan - optics, physics
Kepler, Johannes - astronomy, math
Lavoisier, Antoine - chemistry
Leakey, Louis - anthropology
Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van - microbiology, microscopy
Leibnitz, Gottfried - math, physics, etc.
Linnaeus, Carolus - botany, taxonomy
Maxwell, James Clerk - physics
Meitner, Lise - atomic physics
Mendel, Gregor - genetics
Mendeleev, Dmitri - chemistry
Neumann, John von - computer science, etc.
Newton, Sir Isaac - math, physics
Pasteur, Louis - chemistry, biology
Pauling, Linus - chemistry
Planck, Max - quantum physics
Rutherford, Ernest - nuclear physics, atomic theory, radioactivity.
Salk, Jonas - medicine, vaccination
Tesla, Nicolai - physics, invention
Turing, Alan - computer science, etc.
Vesalius, Andreas - founder of anatomical sciences
Volta, Alessandro - chemistry, physics
Watson, James - Dna
Please tell me if you prefer to have the list sorted chronologically, as Aspidistra did in #230.

239

Rule suggestions from MfM, Esq

  1. Evicts should be permanent. But Keeps should be temporary, unless they clearly say that they are voting for their number 1 and/or 2 scientist.

  2. I think you should need a minimum of 3 votes to evict. If nobody gets 3 votes during a round, extend the deadline by a week or so. It’s the discussion which is the important part anyway. As I said earlier, the list is approaching a manageable size now.

  3. It would be best to sometimes present the list alphabetically, sometimes chronologically.

During the break, I hope to present some sort of top 10 list to work off of. I’ll argue that life scientists should be upgraded, quantum mechanical types downgraded, at least within the top 40 list. Newton and Einstein still win the top 2 slots.

Keep
Leeuwenhoek, Antonie van - microbiology, microscopy
Bernard, Claude Claude Bernard - Wikipedia

Eliminate:
Agassiz, Louis - biology, geology (just on 1 list). Why is this guy still standing?
Fermat - not on any of the lists.
Hutton - not on any of the lists
Leakey, Louis - not on any of the lists. Huh. (((Boas))) is #14 though.
Tesla - only on 1 list
Meitner
Leibnitz - it’s for the best.

240

Eliminate:

Bernard
Crick
Feynman
Franklin, Rosalind
Hilleman
Hutton
Meitner

Keep:

Leakey
Leeuwenhoek