Who is/was the most important person ever?

[waltzingparrot]

Just listened to an interview and a 'name' was suggested as being the most important person ever in our planet's history.

If you had to name one person as being the most important, who would it be?

Presumably without what they invented/did/said, our life today would be unrecognisable.

I immediately have a list of a dozen or so really important people throughout history, but I don't know how to rank them and come up with a no 1.

This. Jesus gets my vote.

The groups of people who noticed that some plants and animals could be progressively domesticated and therefore there was no need to be nomadic hunter gatherers anymore.

I agree with PPs who say that, for inventions, someone else would generally have come up with the same thing. Most inventions don't come out of nowhere - they are a product of their time and culture, as well as of the individual inventor. If Oppenheimer hadn't done it, someone else would have.

Person who invented the wheel.

Where specific inventors matter is perhaps in the effect of the timing of their work.
The discovery of penicillin no doubt had some effect on the progress of WWII.

What might have happened if the first atom bomb had been created not by the allies to help end a world war but by a totalitarian state to start one?

Who might have died prematurely or never been born had the discovery of vaccination been delayed?

...ok, that gives another vote for Jesus, Christianity has delayed all sorts of scientific advances over the millennia.

I didn’t know that @BitOutOfPractice - every day’s a school day!

I'm not sure about Jesus. I think the argument for him not existing is that there were loads of people called Jesus around that time so of course the name was documented.

Faraday, Tesla and Edison.
Without the harnessing of electricity, there would be no modern world. We’d still be stuck at Industrial revolution stage without it.

Fire. The one that first made fire.

It annoys me that Wikipedia still says Guttenberg @MotherOfCatBoy!

I think it demonstrates though, that it is the inventions, not the inventor that changed the world. Because generally someone would’ve come up with most inventions sooner or later.

Both my children

and they’re thankfully alive and kicking, so the world is blessed!

If Oppenheimer hadn't done it someone else would have.

But if Oppenheimer hadn't been heading up the Manhattan Project the bomb might not have been useable before the Japanese surrender, so we'd have entered the post war period without a real life illustration of what it could do. The post war period might have been very different.

Not as different as a world without Christianity or Islam though (whether you attribute the rise of Christianity to Christ or Paul or Constantine).

That's very disingenuous. Mary Seacole wasn't doing the same thing at all.

She was an amazing woman who has many of her own achievements. Imo most importantly her bravery at;
A) making her own way to Crimea when she was turned down in the U.K.
B) actually setting foot on battlefields to search for injured soldiers. Whereas FN never strayed close to the fighting.

But she didn't have the understanding of the impact of hygiene and nutrition that FN had. FN revolutionised nursing in that respect. Even Mary Seacole didn't describe herself as a nurse and she called her hospital a hotel.

Two amazing and revolutionary women - but very different achievements and not as immediately comparable as many people first assume.

Maybe so.

I'm pondering whether to go and see the film - it's supposed to be good, but...

Think I'll go with Mitochontrial Eve, as per a PP - great suggestion.

Laughing at this.

I agree on Jesus as the most important person ever to have lived.

Gutenberg
Luther
Edison/Faraday
Watt
Smith

Thomas Midgley Junior.

Inventory of CFCs, Leaded petrol and expanded polystyrene.

Has probably had a more significant impact on planet earth than any other single organism.

Dr Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine, the first vaccine ever.

Florence Nightingale discovered the need for clean water.

These two public health measures have saved and improved more lives than anything else.

I think we should include Semmelweis, for his antiseptic procedures, though it took a long time for him to be recognised.

God

I find this totally hilarious that others don't believe jesus is real

Was.

Sounds like a question Philomena Cunk would ask, tbh. What was hers...? "What's the most historical thing that's ever happened?"

@ErrolTheDragon no comment