• Question: Question: who is the greatest scientist of all time? (That is british)

    Asked by conn207 to Antonia, Douglas, Hugh, Matt, Tom on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Matthew Hurley

      Matthew Hurley answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      OK – narrow this to British people – Newton, obviously, but didn’t he cheat? I reckon the greatest scientist would be Darwin did a good job (way ahead of his time) – made astute observations and tried to work out what this meant.

    • Photo: Hugh Roderick

      Hugh Roderick answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      In my area it has to be Darwin, the theory of evolution has been the bedrock of all subsequent biology and still is. Though no scientist works in isolation, even the greats like Darwin and Einstein were very reliant on work done by otehr scientists.

    • Photo: Tom Hardy

      Tom Hardy answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I’m going to cheat and say two… but they did work as a team. James D. Watson and Francis Crick used a technique called x-ray diffraction to come up with the double helix (spiral) structure of DNA. Understanding this structure is the secret of life and he allowed many many developments in modern medicine and allowed us to better understand the biology of life.

Comments

  • Photo: Tom

    Tom commented on :

    Darwin proposed theories, he didn’t actually do any real science. His stuff is interesting but hasn’t saved lives, not in my view any way.

    • Photo: Hugh

      Hugh commented on :

      Darwin did plenty of science (as anyone who has read his rather dull books on molluscs knows!), and what is science if it isn’t the careful logging of observations as Darwin undertook on his journey on the Beagle and then the synthesis of a hypothesis based on those observations? I agree that Watson and Crick are very important in the history of science but really Darwin has done just as much for our understanding of the biology of life. Without a theory of heritable traits we wouldn’t have started looking for what the heritable thing was!

    • andrewleitch commented on :

      *Sticking neb in* Watson was a Yank so you’re doubly cheating. Maybe you should have mentioned Rosalind Frankin the unsung hero of the DNA story(who actually used x-ray diffraction as the others ‘just’ interpreted it) or even Maurice Wilkin (though he was sort of a Kiwi).