Who Is Your Favorite Scientist?

[mummymonkey]

Dead - Darwin
Alive - Dawkins

 

[Metullus]

Ex-scientist: Feynman

Currently breathing scientist: Roger Brent

 

[T'ai Chi]

Newton, Euler, Pascal, Boltzmann, Ronald Fisher

 

[TruthSeeker]

I am crushed that nobody said me. Or mentioned my cuteness

 

[Metullus]

I am crushed that nobody said me. Or mentioned my cuteness

Nobody said you because we all respect your sense of modesty.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Nobody said you because we all respect your sense of modesty.

Oh, yes, of course, that explains it. It is true that I have an outstanding sense of modesty.

 

[Metullus]

Oh, yes, of course, that explains it. It is true that I have an outstanding sense of modesty.

And so many of us understand that and respect it. Otherwise we would invite you to more parties...

 

[TruthSeeker]

And so many of us understand that and respect it. Otherwise we would invite you to more parties...

In that case, my good man, I am honoured not to be invited to your parties.

 

[Metullus]

In that case, my good man, I am honoured not to be invited to your parties.

It is our pleasure I assure you.

 

[Complexity]

Think again, Brodski

Newtons methods often leaned more to wards alchemy than what we would consider modern science (he was a member of a society which believed that they could turn themselves invisible for one thing, and that wasn't the strangest of his beliefs).

I have no doubt that Newton was a genius, and he helped lay many of the foundations of modern science, but his routes where in alchemy and magic.

The biography of newton by John Maynard Keynes is a good place to start to see this side of Newton.

Sorry, Brodski, but you're way off base. Newton was a scientist of the first order. He stepped in some woo and didn't wipe it off, but that wasn't unusual for his time (or ours - look at the many religious scientists). He was a theoretical and experimental scientist as well as a mathematician.

Try reading better biographies, and don't get distracted by the woo.

Newton was superb.

 

[Mongrel]

I don't know many of the 'Not in the news or History books' One (dead) scientist who I had heard and read about who advanced both Science and the Scientific methods is John Snow

 

[ZirconBlue]

ZirconBlue thanks for saying Tesla, he's probably the most underrated scientist. I dream for the day that Tesla is as well known as Edison. I know it's a dream.

Alas, while seemingly reputable sources continue to attribute his inventions to others (e.g. Marconi and the radio), this will just remain a dream. On the other hand, I don't believe that Edison ever had a famous rock band named after him....

 

[Jellby]

Euler, Gauss and Lavoisier

 

[SkepticalScience]

This one is easy for me.

Carl Sagan.

Scientists . . .
“. . . can routinely predict a solar eclipse, to the minute, a millennium in advance. You can go to the witch doctor to lift the spell that causes your pernicious anaemia, or you can take Vitamin B12. If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. If you’re interested in the sex of your unborn child, you can consult plumb-bob danglers all you want . . . but they’ll be right, on average, only one time in two. If you want real accuracy . . . try amniocentesis and sonograms. Try science.”

 

[Iamme]

This question is not really fair. That's like asking us what the most important invention is of all time.

If I were black, let's say, I would have to be loyal to my group and put a good word in for George washington Carver. I watched a show about him a few months back and became even MORE impressed with that man, and what not only he accomplished but what he spawned.

Oh...and *I* was going to say Tesla, but someone beat me too it. He is the father of AC current (while Edison was the dc man) and our whole world runs on ac. Think about that.

 

[homer]

I was going to say Maxwell , but I suppose he was a theorist like the guy Einstein who took over where he left off . Richard Feynmann was a great theorist as well . But I don't care , it's got to be that bongo player .

 

[hgc]

Ben Franklin wasn't a "Pure" scientist, but what he did in the scientific arena was really neat.

That's who I was going to say.

 

[luchog]

Alas, while seemingly reputable sources continue to attribute his inventions to others (e.g. Marconi and the radio), this will just remain a dream. On the other hand, I don't believe that Edison ever had a famous rock band named after him....

Too bad it was such a crappy rock band.

Tesla does get the short end of the stick when it comes to recognition (doesn't help that Edison ripped off a bunch of his stuff, either); and due to his eccentricity and refusal to document his work, he also tends to be a favorite of the woo-woo crowd as well.

But one of the few truly original geniuses of the previous century.

 

[T'ai Chi]

I have to add Kolmogorov.

 

[Nucular]

BF Skinner.

Stephen Jay Gould.

Susan Blackmore.