Ranking
Darwin: http://ncse.com/blog/2013/10/ranking-darwin-0015137 :“Ranking
Darwin” by Glenn Branch. Posted October 29, 2013:If the year 2000 didn’t usher in the
Apocalypse or devastating computer problems, at least it brought with it a
flurry of lists offering to rank the historical figures of the past millennium.
So intense was the flurry that I compiled my own list of lists of the most
important people or the greatest books or the most significant events (and so
on) that included Darwin. In the end, my list included no fewer than seventeen
lists, prompting me to comment, in Reports of the NCSE 2000;20(3):40–41,
“Millennia end neither with bangs nor with whimpers, neither in fire nor in
ice, but with lists. Not everyone is quite so enthusiastic about Darwin as is
the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, who wrote, ‘If I were to give an award for
the single best idea anyone has ever had, I’d give it to Darwin’ .... Darwin’s
place in the millennial list-making frenzy is secure nevertheless.”
Coming a little late to the party, a
new book, Steven Skiena and Charles B. Ward’s Who’s Bigger?
Where Historical Figures Really Rank (2013),
offers its own ranking of historical figures, relying on a quantitative, as
opposed to the usual impressionistic, approach. On their website for the book,
Skiena and Ward explain,
“We have developed computational methods to measure historical significance
through analysis of Wikipedia and other data sources. We rank historical
figures just as Google ranks webpages, by integrating a diverse set of
measurements . . . . We correct for the passage of time in a principled way, so
we can fairly compare the significance of historical figures of different eras.”
Despite the methodological innovations,
there aren’t a lot of surprises in their list of the top 100 figures; as Skiena
and Ward observe, “The success of our ranking methods is best established by
the banality of our results.” And it’s no surprise in particular that Darwin is
#12 in the list—behind Jesus, Napoleon, Muhammad, Shakespeare, Lincoln,
Washington, Hitler, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Jefferson, and Henry VIII,
but ahead of Elizabeth I, Marx, and Julius Caesar. He’s also the highest ranked
scientist, with Einstein, Newton, and Linnaeus trailing at #19, #21, and #31, respectively. Only eight
scientists are in the top 300; besides Darwin and Linnaeus, Pasteur (#112) and Mendel (#250) are the only biologists. All that is
broadly consistent with the millennial lists that were published in these Reports:
Amazon.com: Millennium Books (as
voted by customers)
1. J. R. R. Tolkien, The
Lord of the Rings
2. Margaret Mitchell, Gone
With the Wind
3. Harper Lee, To
Kill a Mockingbird
4. J. D. Salinger, The
Catcher in the Rye
5. J. K. Rowling, Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
6. Stephen King, The
Stand
7. James Joyce, Ulysses
8. Ayn Rand, Atlas
Shrugged
9. John Steinbeck, The
Grapes of Wrath
10.George Orwell, 1984
11.F. Scott
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
12.J. R. R. Tolkien, The
Hobbit
13.Ayn Rand, The
Virtue of Selfishness
14.Frank Herbert, Dune
15.Jane Austen, Pride
and Prejudice
16.William Shakespeare, The
Complete Works
17.William
Shakespeare, Hamlet
18.Leo Tolstoy, War
and Peace
19.Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry
B. Jenkins, Left Behind
20.Joseph Heller, Catch-22
21.Charles Darwin, The
Origin of Species
22.John Irving, A
Prayer for Owen Meany
23.Frank McCourt, Angela’s
Ashes
24.Ayn Rand, The
Fountainhead
25.Douglas Adams, The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
BBC Online: Who was your
choice for the greatest man of the last 1000 years?
1. Mahatma Gandhi
2. Leonardo da Vinci
3. Jesus Christ
4. Nelson Mandela
5. Sir Isaac Newton
6. Albert Einstein
7. Martin Luther King
8. Sir Winston Churchill
9. Charles Darwin
10.Karl Marx
BBC Online: Who was your
choice for the greatest thinker of the last 1000 years?
1. Karl Marx
2. Albert Einstein
3. Sir Isaac Newton
4. Charles Darwin
5. Thomas Aquinas
6. Stephen Hawking
7. Immanuel Kant
8. René Descartes
9. James Clerk Maxwell
10.Friedrich Nietzsche
BBC Radio: British
Personality of the Millennium
1. William Shakespeare —
11,717 votes
2. Winston Churchill —
10,957 votes
3. William Caxton — 7,109
votes
4. Charles Darwin — 6,337 votes
5. Isaac Newton — 4,664
votes
6. Oliver Cromwell — 4,653
votes
Biography: Most
Influential People of the Past 1000 Years
1. Johann Gutenberg
2. Isaac Newton
3. Martin Luther
4. Charles Darwin
5. William Shakespeare
6. Christopher Columbus
7. Karl Marx
8. Albert Einstein
9. Nicolaus Copernicus
10.Galileo Galilei
David Herbert
Donald: The Ten Most Significant Events of the Second Millennium
1. Invention of gunpowder
(in the West), early 1300s
2. The Black Death
devastates Europe, 1347–51
3. Johann Gutenberg uses
movable type to print early Bibles, c. 1455
4. Christopher Columbus
reaches America, 1492
5. James Watt perfects his
steam engine, 1775
6. The American Revolution,
1775–1783
7. Charles Darwin
publishes The Origin of Species, 1859
8. Henry Ford begins
commercial development of the automobile, 1903
9. The First World War,
1914–1918
10.Dropping of the atomic
bomb on Japan, 1945
(Source: The
World Almanac and Book of Facts 2000, Mahwah (NJ): World
Almanac Books, 1999, p. 35.)
Agnes Hooper Gottlieb,
Henry Gottlieb, Barbara Bowers and Brent Bowers, Ranking the Men and Women
Who Shaped the Millennium
1. Johannes Gutenberg
2. Christopher Columbus
3. Martin Luther
4. Galileo Galilei
5. William Shakespeare
6. Isaac Newton
7. Charles Darwin
8. Thomas Aquinas
9. Leonardo da Vinci
10.Ludwig van Beethoven
(Source: 1000
Years, 1000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium,
New York: Kodansha America, 1998.)
Michael H. Hart: The Most
Influential 20 Persons in History
1. Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts’ai Lun
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10.Albert Einstein
11.Louis Pasteur
12.Galileo Galilei
13.Aristotle
14.Euclid
15.Moses
16.Charles Darwin
17.Shih Huang Ti
18.Augustus Caesar
19.Nicolaus Copernicus
20.Antoine Laurent Lavoisier
(Source:
Michael H. Hart, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in
History, revised edition, New York: Citadel Press, 1992.)
Life: Top 100
People of the Millennium
1. Thomas Edison
2. Christopher Columbus
3. Martin Luther
4. Galileo Galilei
5. Leonardo da Vinci
6. Isaac Newton
7. Ferdinand Magellan
8. Louis Pasteur
9. Charles Darwin
10.Thomas Jefferson
Life: Top 100
Events of the Millennium
1. Gutenberg’s Bible, 1455
2. Columbus reaches the New
World, 1492
3. Luther posts the 95
Theses, 1517
4. Watt perfects his steam
engine, 1769
5. Galileo discovers the
moons of Jupiter, 1610
6. Koch discovers the
microbe that causes tuberculosis, 1882
7. Gunpowder weapons are
developed in China, c. 1100
8. The Declaration of
Independence is adopted, 1776
9. Hitler becomes chancellor
of Germany, 1933
10.Compasses are used for
navigation in China, 1117
11.Edison builds his
laboratory in Menlo Park, 1876
12.The earliest African
slaves arrive in the New World, 1509
13.Jenner invents
inoculation against smallpox, 1796
14.The first television
broadcast, 1928
15.Darwin publishes The
Origin of Species, 1859
16.The bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, 1945
17.Ford unveils the Model T,
1908
18.The First Crusade, 1095
19.The Magna Carta, 1215
20.The first telephone
transmission, 1876
Philip and Phyllis
Morrison: 100 or so Books that shaped a Century of Science [in the biography
section]
1. Charles Darwin, Autobiography (1950)
2. [G.] H. Hardy, A
Mathematician’s Apology (1940)
3. James Watson, The
Double Helix (1968)
4. Freeman Dyson, Disturbing
the Universe (1979)
5. Richard Feynman, Surely
You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)
MSNBC: Who are the
people, for good or ill, who made us what we are today? Of 16,895 total votes in
the science and technology category:
1. Albert Einstein, 36%
2. Thomas Edison, 18%
3. Isaac Newton, 14%
4. Galileo Galilei, 6%
5. Charles Darwin, 5%
6. Louis Pasteur, 3%
7. Nicolaus Copernicus, 3%
8. Jonas Salk, 2%
9. James Watson and Francis
Crick, 2%
10.Hippocrates, 2%
Arthur Schlesinger
Jr.: The Ten Most Influential People of the Second Millennium
1. William Shakespeare
2. Isaac Newton
3. Charles Darwin
4. Nicolaus Copernicus
5. Galileo Galilei
6. Albert Einstein
7. Chrstopher Columbus
8. Abraham Lincoln
9. Johann Gutenberg
10.William Harvey
(Source: The
World Almanac and Book of Facts 2000, Mahwah (NJ): World
Almanac Books 1999, p. 35.)
Glenn T. Seaborg: The Ten Greatest
Scientists of the Second Millennium
(listed chronologically)
1. Leonardo da Vinci,
1452–1519
2. Isaac Newton, 1642–1727
3. Jöns Jakob Berzelius,
1779–1848
4. Charles Darwin, 1809–1882
5. Dmitri Mendeleyev,
1834–1907
6. Ernest Rutherford,
1871–1937
7. Albert Einstein,
1879–1955
8. Niels Bohr, 1885–1962
9. Werner Heisenberg,
1901–1976
10.Enrico Fermi, 1901–1954
(Source: The
World Almanac and Book of Facts 2000, Mahwah (NJ): World
Alamanac Books 1999, p. 36.)
Tom Siegfried: The
Millennium’s Brightest Ideas (Source: Dallas
Morning News, October 11, 1999.)
1. (tie) Evolution –
Laplace and Charles Darwin
2. (tie) Conservation of
energy – Julius Mayer, Hermann Helmholtz, James Joule, and others
3. The experimental method –
Francis Bacon
4. Antimatter – Paul Dirac
5. Fields – Michael Faraday
and James Clerk Maxwell
6. Genes – Gregor Mendel
7. Universal gravitation –
Isaac Newton
8. Non-Euclidean geometry –
Lobachevsky, Bolyai, Gauss, and Riemann
9. Spacetime – Albert
Einstein and Hermann Minkowski
10.Cognitive dissonance –
Leon Festinger
11.Boolean logic – George
Boole
The Sunday Times (London):
Masterworks for the Millennium
1. Hamlet — William
Shakespeare
2. David — Michelangelo
3. Pietà — Michelangelo
4. King Lear — William
Shakespeare
5. Sistine Chapel —
Michelangelo
6. On the Origin of Species — Charles Darwin
7. The King James Bible
8. The Ring Cycle — Richard
Wagner
9. The Ninth Symphony —
Ludwig van Beethoven
10.The Taj Mahal
The Toronto Globe and Mail: The
Millennium 100
1. Albert Einstein
2. Martin Luther
3. Karl Marx (tie)
3. William Shakespeare (tie)
4. Isaac Newton
5. Adolf Hitler
6. Christopher Columbus
7. Johannes Gutenberg
8. Charles Darwin
9. Galileo Galilei
10.Mohandas Gandhi