IUBio

Time Magazine: Man of the Millennium

Gerry Quinn gerryq at indigo.ie
Wed Sep 23 12:01:15 EST 1998


In article <Pine.BSF.4.02A.9809230627430.28199-100000 at dillinger.io.com>, MA Lloyd <malloy00 at io.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 23 Sep 1998, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>>>FWIW the most popular work playing this game is probably Michael H Hart's
>>>The 100.  His ordering can of course be debated, but it isn't too bad; I
>>>doubt you can make a decent case for anybody he hasn't put in the top 25.  
>>>His entries in the top 25 that fall into this millenium are Newton, 
>>>Gutenberg, Columbus, Einstein, Pasteur, Galileo, Darwin, Copernicus, 
>>>Lavoisier, Watt, Faraday, Maxwell, and Luther.
>>>
>>
>>What about Shakespeare??? That list is ridiculously biased toward 
>>scientists.
>
>He's much further down the list.  That makes sense really, science has
>had more impact on society than literature.  

But you can't say that if he didn't do it, nobody else would have - 
unlike the scientists.  Furthermore, I am not convinced that a society 
without literature wold resemble ours more than a society without 
science.

>And even if they were of
>equal significance, while Shakespeare is probably the most important
>figure in modern English literature, English isn't the only important
>language.  I'd put the great composers higher, and even the major visual 
>artists, though the latter are less universal.
>

Hasn't he been translated?

As for composers / visual artists, can you honestly say that if one 
such was obliterated from history, he (she???) would leave a hole in 
the common culture as big as the disappearance of Shakespeare would?

- Gerry

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  gerryq at indigo.ie  (Gerry Quinn)
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