Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

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1) Genetics - Oswald Avery, co-discoverer of DNA, '44. Remarkable part, he was in his late sixties.

2) Neuroscience - Julius Axelrod, mostly anagelsic and pineal gland research.

3) Infectious diseases and/or human health - Louis Pasteur. Making milk drinkable and transportable for the modern age is quite possibly a huge achievement on its own.

4) Biology in general - Galen, whose anatomical research and drawings especially in the 2nd century stood for a millennia and half as the hallmark.

5) Physics - <clicks tongue> Many. Not an easy choice, I'll have to go with Werner Heisenberg. Sorry, Albert. It's his inroads into QM moreso than anything else that allow me to get really creative these days.

6) Chemistry - slight cheating here, but I'll have to go with Curie, man and wife, and their research into radioactivity. They suffered short lifespans, most assuredly knowingly, in the name of scientific research. At least Pierre had the dubious fortune to get run over by a carriage instead.

7) Mathematics - Srinivasa Ramanujan, an inspiration. He was largely self-taught, and the elegance of the formulae is still being explored and found applicable in multiple fields today. A tragedy too, because one wonders how much more explosive his impact, which was already huge, would have been if he had not perished at 32 years of age. See #5.

Thanks for the massive shoulders.


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Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

Only problem with Galen is that his work was almost ENTIRELY wrong and the fanatical, almost religious reverence for his work probably set anatomy back 1200 years.

Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

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Only problem with Galen is that his work was almost ENTIRELY wrong and the fanatical, almost religious reverence for his work probably set anatomy back 1200 years.

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Yes. And it wasn't as much his work as the religious taboos against exploring too deeply into dissective anatomy. The guy tried.

Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

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Only problem with Galen is that his work was almost ENTIRELY wrong and the fanatical, almost religious reverence for his work probably set anatomy back 1200 years.

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Yes. And it wasn't as much his work as the religious taboos against exploring too deeply into dissective anatomy. The guy tried.

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Yeah, one of our anatomy profs is a huge history buff, especially with respect to anatomy, and so on Halloween he gave an optional lecture on the History of Anatomy and Dissection. Fascinating stuff. From the taboos and hilarious misconceptions to the beginnings of medical dissection (filled with body-snatching and worse) its really a bizarre, macabre and hilarious history. Galen is definitely the father of anatomy, but he is not the greatest anatomist. That honor probably goes to Da Vinci.

Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

Archimedes.

'cause he did it before doin' it was happenin'.

Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

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I said Watson and Crick because they did, after all, identify the chemical structure of genetics. That gets us to sequencing and molecular biology and had an enormous practical impact after 30-40 years. Yes, somebody else would have done it if they hadn't. And of course there's the fooforall about whether they stole Rosalind Franklin's data, which detracts from the achievement somewhat.

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I kind of see them as a "right place, right time" deal. Not only did they have Franklin's data but also her expertise. She told them that they had the phospate groups in the wrong place because they didn't know that they were hydrophilic.
Plus they had Wilkins' data and expertise (I still think that the reason W + C are so famous and nobody knows about Wilkins sharing the Nobel with them is because of the "Slide Rule" picture) and Pauling had his travel restricted and couldn't come to England to meet Franklin and Wilkins. I would guess that if he did he would have beaten them to it.
Also, neither of them really did experients.

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But still, they've both gone on to continued scientific achievement.

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I don't see that they did. Crick went crazy with his consciousness stuff and Watson did no real science. Crick's influence on molecular biology in the later 50's was reviewing others work.
I just don't seem them as these giants.
Was their finding really important? Of course. But too many other, more talented, people were involved.

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I chose Skinner for psychology because he had enormous impact with behaviorism and completely dominated the field for 2 decades, and the basic principles he laid out are still in use today.

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FWIW, my Ph.D. advisor would agree with you about James. He gave me a copy of James' book on my first day in the lab, and now he lives 3 doors down from James' Cambridge house. Maybe that's why I didn't even consider him for this list [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Understandable [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

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That honor probably goes to Da Vinci.

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Yes, well, Da Vinci was in a class all his own though, and was a genuine polymath.

Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

1) Genetics; Darwin


4) Biology in general; Linné

5) Physics; Newton

6) Chemistry; Pauling

7) Mathematics; Gauss

Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

Physics; I've always been a big fan of Feynman, But i'd have to say either Heisenburg or Niels Bohr.

Math; Erdos or Gauss

Re: Best Scientists OAT
 

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I kind of see them as a "right place, right time" deal.

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Okay, your logic has convinced me.

How often does anybody say that on internet message boards?