Maxwell stood on Faraday’s shoulders…
According to the SDMB a couple of years ago, it’s Newton, followed by Gutenberg, then Aristotle.
I vote for Aristotle.
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This supposes no one else would have done it.
No doubt the invention of the printing press was a major turning point in history but if it wasn’t Gutenberg it would have been someone else sooner or later.
There are lots of instances where people were inventing things in parallel (sometimes literally at the same time and not knowing it). I do not have examples at hand but reading A Short History of Nearly Everything you see this sort of thing over and over. It’s like human progress gets to some point and then all of a sudden a bunch of people start working on the same new, cool idea (often with no clue anyone else is doing it). Not saying this was the case with the printing press (I have no idea) but just that a time comes for certain ideas and someone, somewhere, goes with it. If that person doesn’t someone else will.
One person usually gets credit and everyone else is barely a footnote. For instance most would say Marconi invented the radio which is certainly a huge step in human progress. But historically whether Marconi should get the credit is, to say the least, in some dispute.
Nah, it’s simply false.
That prize would go to Tesla with no serious (informed) dispute.
Thales, or possibly his successor Anaximander: the first naturalistic and systematically critical thinkers. And we know their names, where they lived, and their approximate dates.
For the win.
It’s scientists all the way down!
In this history, as far as “shaping the modern world” goes, Gutenberg invented the movable type press, Newton discovered the laws of gravitation, and Jesus founded a religion, so the “it would have been done anyway” argument isn’t really valid for the question.
I’m voting for Moses.
Actually, no, he didn’t.
He got very, very close, but was wrong on two hugely important particulars.
Well, I guess it is up to the OP to specify.
I do not think it is what the OP is asking.
I read the OP to be asking who, if they had not existed, would see the world a very changed place.
If Gutenberg never existed the world would (likely) not be a very changed place because someone, somewhere, probably would have invented the printing press.
Indeed Gutenberg did have a great impact on modern society but he was not “special” in that had he not existed society today would not be markedly different.
And Newton described how gravity worked, he never described what gravity was (and he knew it too). If it wasn’t Newton someone else would have figured out how to mathematically predict how a ball moves when it is thrown.
Jesus did not found a religion either. It was the people with him and after him who founded a religion around him.
I don’t read the OP that way at all. It’s an affirmative question: who did impact human history the most, not, whose absence would have changed human history.
IMHO Gutenberg did. Even if in his absence someone else would have, does not take away fom the fact that he did do it.
No doubt he deserves the credit and what he did was way cool. I am not trying to take anything away from him.
Just saying without him the world today would (probably) be largely the same because someone else would have done it and we’d be singing that person’s praises.
So to ask if Gutenberg did the most to affect modern society is to ask what the world would look like if he hadn’t existed. I submit not a lot different because someone else would have done what he did.
Now, if you want to ask what would the world look like if the printing press had never been invented then yeah…he had a colossal effect.
Dr. Sam Beckett
But if Gutenberg didn’t exist, it wouldn’t be our history.
Essentially this argument eliminates the influence of all inventors, scientists, and explorers and places an undue emphasis on leaders, artists, and religious figures. So the question should be “what person, not working in the physical world, had the greatest impact on modern history?”
But that’s not the question asked. The question asked is “Who, in all of human history, has had the greatest impact upon modern society?”, not who was most irreplacable, most original, etc. Just the “greatest impact”.
Please note that I didn’t go to the Reddit link in the OP, so perhaps the original intent was different.
I didn’t go to the link as well so I can’t say either.
I think you could include inventors or scientists or explorers if you can make a case that their timing was pivotal.
I suggested Alexander the Great earlier. History does not lack for conquerors. Yet Alexander managed to spread Western civilization in a way that stuck and profoundly affected how the future world unfolded. Even the Mongols, as incredibly successful and far reaching as they were, did not manage to have as long lasting an impact as Alexander.
If an invention or scientific discovery is way ahead of its time or occurred at a critical moment they may well have affected the future world in ways that, if invented later, would not have occurred and that cold mean our present is profoundly different than if someone did the same thing at a later date.
Of course making the case for such things is more difficult (but would be interesting to explore…counterfactuals can be fun to explore).
In the game thread I linked to earlier (the “vote for the most influential person in history” thread), the top 3 most influential people in history were (as voted by the SDMB):
- Aristotle
- Johann Gutenberg
- Isaac Newton
In a post describing my thinking processes I wrote:
So the top two vote-getters did something that, possibly, maybe, even probably would’ve been done by someone else, eventually. But I don’t see how “somebody else could’ve done that!” diminishes the influence of the people who did.
Although I am not religious, I would have to say Jesus had the greatest influence on Western society
During the epic thread alluded to by JohnT, Jesus had tough competition against St. Paul and Mohammad. While Christianity has more followers than Islam, it required both Paul and Jesus of Nazarath to exist, so Mohammad ultimately defeated them both. In fact Paul edged out Jesus narrowly. My take: “Mohammad beats Christianity because his genius was literary, religious and political. I judge St. Paul to be necessary for Christianity to take hold: Jesus of Nazareth was merely born into the role, as it were. Alternatively, I ascribe a substantial share of his teachings to those who came before and after him.”
The thread was originally inspired by a list of Michael Hart. I’ll quote myself:
I don’t think any of Jesus’ basic principles are present in society. His name, yes, but none of his basic principles. Loving neighbours? Not resisting evil? Giving all of one’s money to the poor?
Edit:
Irony, or?