Sure, we’ve heard lots about people who caused great harm to humanity, like Stalin or Hitler. It’s quite easy to roll off a list of Truly Evil Figures. But a list of people who have greatly benefitted mankind through their efforts seems harder to find.
This leads me to ask the debatable question:
What person has benefitted mankind the most?
Isaac Newton.
That’s easy…my Dad.
Edward Jenner for the process of vaccinations that have eradicated smallpox, hopefully.
Joseph Lister and antiseptic surgery
Johann Gutenberg’s printing press led to the vast expansion of human knowledge.
Oh yeah, John Pemberton for inventing Coca-Cola 
Sir Winston Churchill. Hands down.
I’ll second Johann Gutenberg. I think the printing press was probably the spearhead of mankind into the modern age, without it you could argue that no other advances in medicine or science would have been possible. After the printing press a man’s knowledge gained over a lifetime could be handed out to many people and piled upon other knowledges until a person today can carry the knowledge of a thousand lifetimes around in their head.
[CHRISTIAN BRAIN]
What?! You don’t think it was Jesus?
Jesus wasn’t technically a human in the traditional sense, although doctrinal opinion might make Him fully human, or partially God, or even fully God. As such, I still second Gutenberg.
Jesus will remember you said that.
[/CHRISTIAN BRAIN]
Strongbad.
In chronological order:
The first human (or pre-human) to learn how to use fire.
Aristotle.
Galileo
Newton
Darwin
And since the historical figures all started on what their predicessors had already accomplished, the final vote goes to #1.
How about Norman Borlaug?
My choice for greatest human being has to be Mahatma Ghandi but my choice for the person that beniffited mankind most would also be Gutenberg.
me
Socrates - Plato - Aristotle : just for their contributions, they must be candidates.
Ghandi could definitely be considered for this distinction. Same with Norman Borlaug, judging from what was posted.
Jenner is a great choice. Gutenberg I’d have to disagree with:
I’ve thought of this question before, and have come to the conclusion that “the world’s greatest human” must be someone who invented something that would otherwise not have been discovered (for centuries at least). I know that when some TV station did the top 100 achievments ever a few years back, Gutenberg and his printing press was #1 which startled me. So the question remains (in my head, at least), would someone have stumbled upon the printing press after Gutenberg? I’d like to think yes, but we’ll never know.
And while I’d like to choose Einstein, Aristotle, da Vinci, & many others for making connections that may not have been seen otherwise, the world very well be at the same place in time without their conclusions. But I’d wager that without Isaac Newton’s contributions to Physics, we’d be centuries behind of where we are today.
Billion, with a “B”!
OMG
How can someone save a billion lives and not be a household name?
Cecil.
I agree with Bob55 on the Printing Press. It was the press itself which had such a profound impact on education, religion, etc. Gutenberg just made it. If you look at some scientists- Newton or Einstein for example- if they weren’t born, their greatest discoveries still wouldn’t have been found, and we wouldn’t have any of those concepts.
I’d say Aristotle but his Scientific Method was flawed- hell many of his ideas were assumed true for 1500 years and are dead wrong. He had good intentions though.
I don’t know where we’d be without Martin Luther. Not just Protestants. He brought the end of Catholic intolerance and began a new age.
Ghandi, Abraham (Father of three main religions. Some may say that’s bad or good), Martin Luther King, Jesus (If you’re into that sort of thing).
There are a lot of “good” people. Hard to say who’s the greatest.
Blalron, there was a thread on ol’ Norm here.
Duck Duck Goose provides the case why Borlaug has hurt more than helped . And others say that saving this generation will just cause twice as many to die later.
Still, it’s too bad he is so unknown. It’s probably because it doesn’t concern Americans or Europeans. Same reason why no one knows what “golden rice” is.
Just for the sake of being the devil’s advocate–Leibniz also developed a system of calculus. Granted, Newton did Leibniz one better by using the new math toward developing breakthrough theories about the physical universe. But even if Newton had never been born, it’s quite possible that once Leibniz developed the powerful new mathematical tool of calculus, the genie was out of the bottle. Other natural philosophers would have inevitably applied this system of calculus to discover, piece-by-piece, a Newtonian-style theory of mechanics.
Anyway, that’s just a theory.
The person who invented writing.
Preach it, Brother!