# The World's Greatest Idea **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 9, 2011, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967 "2011-01-09T09:19:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/21 "2011-01-10T18:33:22Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > I thought “scientific method” as soon as I saw the thread title. I suppose it’s not surprising that it’s leading the poll on a board like this one… ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/22 "2011-01-10T18:43:20Z")
I chose Printing, The Scientific Method, and The Wheel. I couldn’t vote for things that are naturally occurring, and not ideas. How is Printing different from Writing? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/23 "2011-01-10T19:38:39Z")
I vote for the thermos. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/24 "2011-01-10T19:39:42Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > How is Printing different from Writing? Writing is that tedious process of one person putting pen to paper. Printing is the mass production of documents. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/25 "2011-01-10T19:44:26Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Writing is that tedious process of one person putting pen to paper. > Printing is the mass production of documents. Ah. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/26 "2011-01-10T19:52:22Z")
What no soap? ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/27 "2011-01-11T00:07:28Z")
People people people, _sliced_ bread is the yardstick by which all other ideas are measured. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/28 "2011-01-11T02:48:09Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > By whom? [ul][li]Nobel laureate Max Born praised general relativity as the “greatest feat of human thinking about nature”.[/li][li]Nobel laureate Paul Dirac: “probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made”.[/li][li]Raymond D’Inverno, University of Southampton Lecturer, author of a major text on relativity: “Indeed, the intellectual leap required by Einstein … is, there can be little doubt, one of the greatest in the history of human thought.”[/li][li]Ray Kurzweil, inventor: “We marvel at Einstein’s ability to conjure up the theory of general relativity from a thought experiment”.[/li][li]magazines: Popular Science, June 2005: “What Einstein accomplished 100 years ago remains a landmark of human thought.”[/li][li]Time magazine, 1999: “Person of the Century”.[/li][li]even a most generic site, one selling pre-written essays to lazy college students: “His theory of relativity is held as the highest quality of a human thought ever to come.”[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/29 "2011-01-11T03:06:26Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > How is Printing different from Writing? One gives you +5 science points when you build the Guternberg Bible, the other unlocks Monarchy. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/30 "2011-01-11T03:07:39Z")
Monotheism because of Christianity (the true form of the monotheism received originally by Abraham). ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/31 "2011-01-11T03:35:46Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Monotheism because of Christianity (the true form of the monotheism received originally by Abraham). Ridiculous! You are letting your fundamentalist beliefs overturn history again, Curtis. There were monotheistic Pharaoh-based religions in Egypt 1800-1200 years BC. Zoroastrianism in Persia was monotheistic, about 600 BC. Chinese religions were monotheistic starting about 1600 BC. And there are others. Study more. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/32 "2011-01-11T13:55:24Z")
Perhaps I’m just missing it, and it can be argued that it’s a subset of Logic, but looking at this list I wonder why the authors didn’t include **Mathematics**? ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/33 "2011-01-11T15:36:39Z")
I voted Sewerage, but it was closest to what I think is the greatest human acheivement; indoor plumbing with hot running water. One of the reasons I love camping is because when I get home and take a nice hot shower, I think about the amount of technology it took to give me what most of humans throughout history would deem worthy of kings and gods. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/34 "2011-01-11T16:53:28Z")
Since the Scientific Method is getting the most votes, I thought liking to this very excellent article is appropriate: > **[The Truth Wears Off](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/13/the-truth-wears-off)** > > Is there something wrong with the scientific method? ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/35 "2011-01-11T17:01:33Z")
If there was one option for ‘human equality’ I wuld have picked that- I think that would cover abolition of slavery and feminism… In fact a few of these options I see as parts of a greater idea. Interesting though 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/36 "2011-01-11T17:09:16Z")
Beer is not on the list. This is a complete travesty. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/37 "2011-01-11T20:05:15Z")
I don’t even need to look at your list (but I did anyway). Fire, plumbing, and farming. Without those things, we’d be extinct by now. Those three things are what let us go from a few thousand to 7 billion in number. I tossed in ‘zero’ for kicks, because it really laid a foundation for writing, science and math. Without zero, the others don’t get off the ground. > [@even\_sven](#): > > I chose “contraceptive” and “feminism.” Even the deepest ideas and most amazing inventions have generally meant next to nothing for half of the human population. Really? Fire and farming didn’t do anything for women? Really? I mean…really? If you went back to the 50s and said “ladies, would you rather have contraception or the internet?”, you think they’d pick _the frickin pill_?! ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/38 "2011-01-11T20:12:49Z")
> [@tr0psn4j](#): > > What no soap? No soap, radio! Oh. Radio didn’t make the list either. Anyway, I disagree with the concept of making this a multiple-choice poll. If you are looking for my opinion on the greatest idea, there should only be one choice. I have therefore made that choice, with similar reservations about the concept of “idea”. Much as I hate to go with the crowd, I think it has to be “the scientific method”, because you could argue that many of the other very, very important things on the list arose from it. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/39 "2011-01-11T20:26:52Z")
> [@Karen\_Lingel](#): > > People people people, _sliced_ bread is the yardstick by which all other ideas are measured. In that case, I change my vote. I vote for the yardstick. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967/40 "2011-01-11T20:45:32Z")
I can’t believe that the iPhone isn’t on the list!!! Windows is for lusers!!!111 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worlds-greatest-idea/566967.md?page=3)