# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 65
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364/65 "2014-01-23T13:59:02Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > I expected St. Paul to be #1. I can’t believe he’s not in the top 30. > [@Nava](#): > > And yet, neither the woman who financed him nor the man who inspired Machiavello are in the list. Their great-grandson is. Louis XVI of France? Are you fucking kidding me? He basically died! This is GD “Who is the most influential person of all time?” Discussing the Time list is better suited to BBQ Pit. Michael Hart’s list is enormously better (peraps better, IMO, than SDMB’s list from 4 years ago.) On Hart’s list, St. Paul ranks #5. Isabella the Catholic is #65. Machiavelli is #79. I like the criterion: “How different would the world have been without the person.” One famous scientist being “ahead of his time” argues _against_ his influence, as I argued in [“Who, in all of human history, has had the greatest impact upon modern society?”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=652160) > [@Who, in all of human history, has had the greatest impact upon modern society?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-in-all-of-human-history-has-had-the-greatest-impact-upon-modern-society/622264/125): > > A key question is: _How long would a discovery have been delayed if its discoverer hadn’t lived?_ In the case of Mendel, we know the answer: 35 years. A rather long delay, I think, given the simplicity and importance of Mendel’s discovery to the understanding of genetics and evolution. For this reason, Mendel could be called a great discoverer. > > Unfortunately, the fact that we know the delay would have been 35 years argues against Mendel’s influence. The only reason we know exactly how long the delay would have been is that … there _was_ such a delay. Though published in a scientific journal, Mendel’s discovery was completely ignored for 35 years. :smack: > > Mendel’s Laws _were_ an “idea whose time had come” … 35 years _after_ Mendel’s discovery … when four separate researchers independently discovered the Laws and/or stumbled on Mendel’s paper. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-most-influential-person-of-all-time/679364)._