# Who is the most influential person of all time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 21, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364 "2014-01-21T13:59:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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 22, 2014, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/41 "2014-01-22T15:00:30Z")
BTW (he says for his third post in a row), I wouldn’t mind running another contest, this time with a SDMB created list… if someone wants to go to the effort of creating the list. 🙂 (From the list we came up with, these 78 people have a claim to being on this list (imho)… though I can see a number of them being replaced by more worthy entrants): ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab Adam Smith Adolf Hitler Albert Einstein Alexander Fleming Alexander the Great Antonine Laurent Lavoisier Antony van Leeuwenhoek Aristotle Augustus Caesar Buddha Charlemagne Charles Darwin Christopher Columbus Confucius Constantine the Great Cyrus the Great Edward Jenner Ernest Rutherford Euclid Francis Bacon Galileo Galilei Genghis Khan George Washington Gregor Mendel Gugilemo Marconi Henry Ford Homer Isaac Newton James Clerk Maxwell James Watt Jean-Jacques Rosseau Jesus Christ Johann Gutenberg Johann Sebastian Bach Johannes Kepler John Calvin John Locke Josef Stalin Joseph Lister Julius Caesar Justinian I Karl Marx Lenin Leonhard Euler Louis Dagurre Louis Pasteur Ludwig von Beethoven Mao Zedong Martin Luther Max Planck Michael Faraday Mohammed Moses Napoleon Bonaparte Nicolas Copernicus Nicoli Machiavelli Nikolaus August Otto Orville and Wilbur Wright Peter the Great Plato Pope Urban II Queen Elizabeth I Queen Isabella I Rene Descrates Shi Huang Di Sigmund Freud St Augustine St Paul Sui Wen Ti Thomas Edison Thomas Jefferson Ts’ai Lun Voltaire Werner Heisenberg William Harvey William Shakespeare William the Conquerer I also think the following should be on this list: Bardeen/Shockley/Brittain - inventor of transistor (we can count them as one, imho) Norman Borlaug - green revolution John D. Rockefeller - inventor of the modern corporation ---
**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 22, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/42 "2014-01-22T15:01:53Z")
I also, for anybody who cares, knocked off these 22 people from the Hart/SDMB list: Mahavira Mencius Gregory Pincus John F Kennedy Menes Vasco de Gama Mani Thomas Malthus Francisco Pizarro Simon Bolivar Oliver Cromwell Zoraster William Conrad Roentgen Mikhail Gorbachev Hernando Cortes Alexander Graham Bell Asoka William TG Morton Michelangelo Enrico Fermi Lao Tzu John Dalton Some of these were of the “it was going to happen anyway” crowd, including AGB, the explorers (Cortes, etc), and a number of 19th-20th century physicists. Some of the others were very influential in their country’s history, but for the rest of the world? Not really. And I don’t buy Hart’s argument for JFK as he was only reacting to the Russians in regards to kick-starting the space race for the American side. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/43 "2014-01-22T15:26:05Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > And yes, it does matter if a person on the list is real or mythological, but there seems to be little doubt among theological scholars that the historical Jesus was a real person. First, I’m not disputing that there is a historical basis for Yeshua of Nazareth; by the precepts of professional history studies, the evidence is adquate that he was a living figure. There are other historical figures accepted as real with less evidence. But I’d argue that it doesn’t matter - what changed the world was the Pauline tales, and whether Paul was preaching and passing along literal truth or near-total confabulation doesn’t matter. Neither does belief or non-belief. The impact on the world was immeasurable. (That is on a historical basis - I am not in any way trying to argue this on a religious/personal belief basis. My feeling is that Jesus was real and did some good number of the things attributed to him, but would be a forgotten figure had his legacy not been politically and socially useful in the century after his death.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/44 "2014-01-22T15:39:34Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > I was going to say Genghis Khan for rearranging half the planets DNA but he doesn’t get a mention. It’s yet another very Anglo-Saxon list. A better reason not to mention him is that he didn’t “rearrange half the planet’s DNA”. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/45 "2014-01-22T15:48:16Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Some of these were of the “it was going to happen anyway” crowd, including AGB, the explorers (Cortes, etc), and a number of 19th-20th century physicists. Some of the others were very influential in their country’s history, but for the rest of the world? Not really. And I don’t buy Hart’s argument for JFK as he was only reacting to the Russians in regards to kick-starting the space race for the American side. Yes, I think you have to discount anyone who just happened to be the first to the finish line on a “collectively developing” change - be it technical or social. Someone was going to invent an electric light bulb, telephone, automobile and airplane within a short historical window. The persons who did so, and the persons among those we credit as the winners, are interesting, but not individually responsible for influencing history. Neil Armstrong is another such - an admirable man worth long historical memory, but he personally did not influence history. The immense tower of people he stood atop did, and I don’t think he ever claimed otherwise. (T. Buzz, however…) I think you have to limit such a list to the equivalent of CMH winners - it’s not enough to be backed into a corner and have no choice; the recipient has to have had an absolutely honorable and reasonable chance to do otherwise, but did the hard and necessary thing instead. To call a person historically influential means that they could have done other things, and that it’s unlikely anyone else would have taken their place, and that they did what they did anyway. First among those is, I think, Hitler. Had his particular twisted genius and drive not come along and developed in exactly that way, there would have been no equivalent. A leader who took Germany to war in about that time, yes, but not to the extremes that Dolfie took it. He was a unique man in a unique position to bend the line of history, and the sonofabitch did. I wouldn’t be the first to call him the most influential individual of the 20th century, and I think that’s a hard claim to dispute. (Even the development of atomic energy and space travel traces directly to his rise and influence.) ---
**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 22, 2014, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/46 "2014-01-22T15:59:25Z")
True, but I think the “people were looking for it anyway” argument only holds true for the past couple of hundred years, once the idea of directed scientific research began to take a hold of peoples minds. Prior to then, the “it was going to happen anyway” argument is harder to swallow (unless you think that history is largely predetermined via one agency or another.) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/47 "2014-01-22T16:03:20Z")
Some “first to the post” people are more important than others. Edison may have been one guy among many to develop workable electric lighting systems, but he was the _only_ one with the technical skills, connections and the business acumen to make a shared electricity generation system plausible. ---
**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 22, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/48 "2014-01-22T16:08:42Z")
I agree, RNATB, which is why Edison remained on my list while Bell didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/49 "2014-01-22T16:22:29Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Wouldn’t you put Jesus (#1 on the list) and Mohammed in the same ethnic group? > > Or, was Jesus “white”, but Mohammed was “brown”? Jesus was likely brown too. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/50 "2014-01-22T16:22:46Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/51 "2014-01-22T16:26:19Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Some “first to the post” people are more important than others. Edison may have been one guy among many to develop workable electric lighting systems, but he was the _only_ one with the technical skills, connections and the business acumen to make a shared electricity generation system plausible. But that’s what “first to the post” means - not just having the idea, or even working at it - see the current aircar thread - but working out the WHOLE problem, which in modern times means the financing, marketing, production etc. A lot of absolutely brilliant ideas have been born and died in the garages of inventors who didn’t understand that Thoreau was full of shit. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/52 "2014-01-22T16:28:54Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > I was going to say Genghis Khan for rearranging half the planets DNA but he doesn’t get a mention. It’s yet another very Anglo-Saxon list. Wanna look at the list again? Hint: look at #38 ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/53 "2014-01-22T16:32:28Z")
I’m going through that list linked in the OP and I’m actually getting kind of mad at some of those names: what, exactly, does Robert E. Lee have fuck-all to do with the course of human development? Or Edgar Allen Poe? Not to mention GW Bush, come on. I know others have already covered this ground extensively, but… come on, what the hell? If Richard Nixon is on the list, had the authors even heard of Qin Shi Huang? ---
**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 22, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/54 "2014-01-22T16:35:17Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I’m going through that list linked in the OP and I’m actually getting kind of mad at some of those names: what, exactly, does Robert E. Lee have fuck-all to do with the course of human development? Or Edgar Allen Poe? Not to mention GW Bush, come on. > > I know others have already covered this ground extensively, but… come on, what the hell? If Richard Nixon is on the list, had the authors even heard of Qin Shi Huang? The embarrassing thing is that the authors apparently massaged the list their algorithm spit out. If they had just stuck with the computer’s list, then it is what it is and comments are about the design of the algorithm. But since they massaged it, it’s now _their_ list… and they look like dolts. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/55 "2014-01-22T21:57:24Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > First, I’m not disputing that there is a historical basis for Yeshua of Nazareth; by the precepts of professional history studies, the evidence is adquate that he was a living figure. There are other historical figures accepted as real with less evidence. > > But I’d argue that it doesn’t matter - what changed the world was the Pauline tales, and whether Paul was preaching and passing along literal truth or near-total confabulation doesn’t matter. Neither does belief or non-belief. The impact on the world was immeasurable. > > (That is on a historical basis - I am not in any way trying to argue this on a religious/personal belief basis. My feeling is that Jesus was real and did some good number of the things attributed to him, but would be a forgotten figure had his legacy not been politically and socially useful in the century after his death.) We’re more or less in agreement, but I have trouble with the last sentence, given that Jesus was the nucleus of an influential global movement intimately identified with him. One could equally argue that a lot of people (Marconi, Bell) would be equally obscure had others not followed in their footsteps. One cannot attribute Christianity to any single individual building on Jesus’ legacy; it’s attributable to many individuals and many factors that followed, like the synoptic Gospels and the Nicene Creed 300 years later. That such mythology should have developed around one man is a fascinating part of our history. BTW, I am not at all religious and am commenting on this strictly from a historical perspective. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/56 "2014-01-22T23:42:32Z")
As far as I’m concerned, as of 10-27-1962 the most influential person was Vasili Arkhipov. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/57 "2014-01-22T23:52:40Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Wanna look at the list again? > > Hint: look at #38 I guess I got to Ulysses Grant, Ronald Reagan, GWB and … gave up. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/58 "2014-01-23T00:21:05Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > We’re more or less in agreement, but I have trouble with the last sentence, given that Jesus was the nucleus of an influential global movement intimately identified with him. One could equally argue that a lot of people (Marconi, Bell) would be equally obscure had others not followed in their footsteps. One cannot attribute Christianity to any single individual building on Jesus’ legacy; it’s attributable to many individuals and many factors that followed, like the synoptic Gospels and the Nicene Creed 300 years later. That such mythology should have developed around one man is a fascinating part of our history. I’m not sure there’s any argument here but I have to restate it: Jesus lived and died a minor figure and would be a historical nobody, a meaningless name in some Roman records, had his followers nearly 150 years later not used him as a symbol. Christianity may rest on Jesus, but its very existence by 200 CE and its phenomenal spread after that point is due to second- and third-generation followers, who had political and social aims besides the religious ones. Had Paul’s teachings not inspired that generation… we’d’a nevah hearda da guy. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/59 "2014-01-23T04:48:05Z")
The first guy to speak. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/60 "2014-01-23T10:57:45Z")
I expected St. Paul to be #1. I can’t believe he’s not in the top 30. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364.md?page=4)