# Scientist who has made the largest impact on the field of science? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 11, 2000, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978 "2000-08-11T16:15:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/21 "2000-08-12T03:19:59Z")
MsRobyn wrote: I’d have to say that Michael Faraday’s work with electricity and chemistry place him up there, at least in the Underrated Scientist category. ## He discovered electromagnetism, thereby laying the framework for such things as electric motors, generators, X-rays, and so forth. It may not be the most earth-shattering work, but it does have widely-reaching implications. I thought Orstead discovered electro-magnetism (that electric and magnetic fields were linked). Faraday used that work to develop his inventions. Not distracting from Faraday’s work, just giving credit to Orstead. And it was James Clerk Maxwell who built on both their works and provided a mathematical treatment of electro-magnetics and showed light to be a form of electro-magnetic radiation. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/22 "2000-08-12T03:31:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mipsman \* > \*\*Along the lines of what Lemur said about the inevitability of some discoveries, I remember somebody once wrote that Planck’s Constant was always out there, waiting to be discovered, but Mozart’s music would never have been written by anybody else. \*\* Well, ya hafta mention Gilbert. Sure, Mozart’s music would never have been written by someone else, but Newton’s might have been (and was). Darwin’s too. Certainly Crick and Watson’s. But not general relativity. ---
**Author:** ![Myrr21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Myrr21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrr21)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/23 "2000-08-12T03:37:27Z")
While I admit the huge influence of Newton, it is worth noting two things about “the development of calculus”: 1. Much of the knowledge was already out there–he just pulled it together. Of course, he also put in a lot of brilliant work, but he didn’t just pull it out of his rear. 2. What’s-his-name (it’s too late to think) developed calculus at the same time independantly–Newton was just a bastard who didn’t want to share creadit. he got some governments on his side, which is why he is remembered for it. In fact, many of his notations were pretty downright stupid–and we still use the other guy’s. [sub] Damn I need to look up his name…I should know that…begins with an “h”? [/sub] ---
**Author:** ![APB9999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB9999](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB9999)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/24 "2000-08-12T03:59:40Z")
You’re thinking of Leibniz, Myrr. Newton was the greatest PRACTICING scientist, IMO, but I’m not aware that he contributed to the philosophy of what science IS as much as Galileo and Francis Bacon. They actually said “here is how to think about this stuff”. Newton then went and thought about things that way really, really well. So I would answer the OP that Galileo and Bacon made the greatest contributions to science, as such, by defining what it WAS and breaking out of the medieval mindset about what we now call scientific problems. Newton made the greatest contribution to physical science and placed mathematical modeling at the center. Darwin made the greatest contribution to biology and did more than anyone to show how science could be applied to historical Nature, that is, things that are difficult or impossible to examine under controlled conditions. The ramifications of this achievement are still being explored. Others have made great discoveries and produced great theories (like QM), but they have all been about how the universe works in some aspect. The guys above actually impacted how _science itself_ works, and are therefore my top four. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/25 "2000-08-12T04:10:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freyr \* > \*\*MsRobyn wrote: > > I’d have to say that Michael Faraday’s work with electricity and chemistry place him up there, at least in the Underrated Scientist category. > > ## He discovered electromagnetism, thereby laying the framework for such things as electric motors, generators, X-rays, and so forth. It may not be the most earth-shattering work, but it does have widely-reaching implications. > > I thought Orstead discovered electro-magnetism (that electric and magnetic fields were linked). Faraday used that work to develop his inventions. Not distracting from Faraday’s work, just giving credit to Orstead. > > And it was James Clerk Maxwell who built on both their works and provided a mathematical treatment of electro-magnetics and showed light to be a form of electro-magnetic radiation. \*\* Most of my radiology textbooks mention Faraday as the discoverer of electromagnetism and don’t say anything about Orstead or Maxwell. I’ll send a scathing letter to the publishers on Monday. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mauve\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ad7895/32.png) [@Mauve\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mauve_Dog)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/26 "2000-08-12T08:04:27Z")
If controversy is any indication of degree of impact, then Darwin is certainly up there. It is worth noting that even though Alfred Russell Wallace may have come up with the theory of Natural Selection at about the same time as Darwin, there was an important difference: Wallace was unwilling to extend the theory to explain _us_. That is, everything evolved, except for Man, which was created. Darwin went all the way (and in doing so, re-defined Man’s place in the Universe). So, while certain ‘breakthroughs’ may well have been begging to be discovered, I think that it really took the men and women who discovered them to realize their true significance. ---
**Author:** ![Myrr21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Myrr21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrr21)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/27 "2000-08-12T08:12:01Z")
Actually, Darwin witheld judgement of \* us \* for a number of years–knowing that people wouldn’t take too kindly to it. He did, however, eventually get around to it… ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/28 "2000-08-12T09:42:57Z")
Also, while Wallace had the same ideas, Darwin had spent twenty years ammassing evidence from pigeon breeding. Wallace’s ideas were pretty much good, but not nearly as mature and thought-out as Darwin’s. I think we’d have had a different history of science if Wallace were listed as the discoverer of natural selection. We’d probably have many many more creationists… ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/29 "2000-08-12T10:25:33Z")
I agree about Francis Bacon - without a methodology science was just rumour and unfounded allegation. Couple that been missed - Maxwell, some of his work raised discrepacies in Newtonian physics but the mathematical infrastructure was not available to take it further, however his contribution to relativity has been recognised, not forgetting his work on electricity. Tesla - He was so off the wall that it is not easy to imagine his work being done by anyone else at the time, it would have taken many years longer to develop electrical power systems. Alan Turing - Built what we would recognise as the first algorithms used in the first modern computors. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/30 "2000-08-12T10:31:25Z")
What exactly were Darwin’s scientific credentials? ---
**Author:** ![techchick68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea5d25/32.png) [@techchick68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/techchick68)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/31 "2000-08-12T15:15:30Z")
I really don’t have anything to add as a debate except for a link to our local independent newspaper (C Springs answer to The Chicago Reader)about Nicola Tesla. [http://www.csindy.com/csindy/current/cover.html](http://www.csindy.com/csindy/current/cover.html) It’s only up till next Wednesday so read away, it’s kind of interesting. You might find some of the information thought provoking and his theories interesting. ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/32 "2000-08-12T15:16:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*What exactly were Darwin’s scientific credentials? \*\* Do you mean in comparison with Galileo and Newton ? Do you mean in terms of formal education (Science Faculties were founded at, for example, Oxford at the time ‘The Origin of The Species….’ was first published) ? Do you mean in terms of a lifetimes body of work ? Do you mean in some inappropriate and convoluted modern sense ? Please be more specific. ---
**Author:** ![techchick68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea5d25/32.png) [@techchick68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/techchick68)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/33 "2000-08-12T15:30:18Z")
Sorry, this link will remain up on the web longer for those that don’t get to this till after next Wednesday: [http://www.csindy.com/csindy/2000-08-10/cover.html](http://www.csindy.com/csindy/2000-08-10/cover.html) ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/34 "2000-08-12T17:53:49Z")
Give it up, everybody. It’s Ike Newton by a mile. Yeah, Al Einstein and Chuck Darwin were contenders, but they’re punks compared to my boy Ike. Ike {B}kicks ass,{/B}baby! ---
**Author:** ![Tretiak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e57/32.png) [@Tretiak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tretiak)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/35 "2000-08-12T19:28:10Z")
I’d have to go with Al Gore. After all he did invent the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2000, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/36 "2000-08-12T20:23:02Z")
A quick internet search turned up a short biography at [http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rsauzier/Darwin.html](http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rsauzier/Darwin.html) Just to give a quick summary of the text, Darwin was first educated in his home town of Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He went on to study medicine in Edinburgh. He hated the subject so he left to study theology at Christ’s College, Cambridge. It was here where he developed his love of biology, collecting many specimens of plant and insects. Apparently, his botany professor John Stevens Henslow recognized his aptitude in this area, and was intrumental in securing the position of naturalist aboard the survey ship HMS Beagle. During this five year expedition Darwin gained much of his knowledge of plants and animals, and the material he collected led to the publication of several scientific papers. These papers were well recieved by the scienific community and they thrust Darwin into the front ranks of scientists. Interestingly, if universities gave out degrees then as they do today, Darwin would have recieved a degree in theology. His biggest early credit to his scientific resume was his voyage aboard the Beagle, and not his time at Cambridge. Biology was still a fledgling science in those days and observing the natural world in many environments was more of an education than reading any book that was available. ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2000, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/37 "2000-08-14T14:18:06Z")
I think it was the ape man from the start of _2001 - A Space Odyssey_. You know, the one who figured out you can cave someone’s head in with the thigh bone of an antelope. Now that’s what _I_ call science! What really struck me about that scene was you can almost see the ape man making connections in his head as he smashed up the skeleton on the ground. He was using his imagination to predict what would happen - starting to construct a model of the way the universe works. And down that road lies space stations. No votes for Archimedes yet? Or how about the guy who invented the number zero? ---
**Author:** ![oldscratch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@oldscratch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldscratch)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2000, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/38 "2000-08-14T17:23:15Z")
Plato with the dialectic, and it’s refinement by Hegel and others… The person who realized you could create fire with friction. ---
**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2000, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/39 "2000-08-14T18:46:49Z")
msrobyn wrote: Most of my radiology textbooks mention Faraday as the discoverer of electromagnetism and don’t say anything about Orstead or Maxwell. ## I’ll send a scathing letter to the publishers on Monday. You have my permission to quote me as An Authority! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@Thing\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_1)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2000, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978/40 "2000-08-14T19:39:25Z")
Bill Nye, The Science Guy. His ability to set scientific principles to pop music is astounding. John [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientist-who-has-made-the-largest-impact-on-the-field-of-science/28978.md?page=1)