Greatness

How do we rank the level of greatness between one person and the next? What leaders are greater than others? Are inventors ranked by quantity of inventions or by several more impactful ones? I was browsing wikipedia.org [a new favourite pastime of mine] and I ran into two lists. One was the "Greatest American" list, which was compiled in 2005 by the Discovery Channel by taking votes from American viewers. In 1978 the Top 100 "Most Influential Persons" list was published in a book by Michael Hart [b. 1932, NYC].

Here is the beginning of the "Greatest Americans" list:

1. Ronald Reagan, former President - 24% - named "Greatest American"
2. Abraham Lincoln, former President - 23.5%
3. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader - 19.7% - named "Greatest African American"
4. George Washington, first President - 17.7%
5. Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father and scientist - 14.9%
6. George W. Bush, then President - named "Greatest Living American"
7. Bill Clinton, former President
8. Elvis Presley, singer - named "America's Greatest Entertainer"
9. Oprah Winfrey, talk show host - named "Greatest Woman in American history"
10. Franklin D. Roosevelt, former President
11. Billy Graham, evangelist
12. Thomas Jefferson, former President
13. Walt Disney, founder of Disney
14. Albert Einstein, physicist - named "Greatest American Scientist" and "Greatest Jewish American"
15. Thomas Alva Edison, inventor

Perhaps this list is less biased, as many persons' input formed one cognitive list. However, this would require each individual voter to consider all the nominees and rank them, and then vote on his or her "top American." This list does not prove that Elvis Presley was a greater American than Franklin Roosevelt, just that there are more Elvis fans than FDR enthusiasts. Surely Elvis shaped our culture in the 1950s, but aspects of Roosevelt's New Deal are still in operation today. I think that this list shows not each nominee's "greatness," but the number of Americans who were most affected by that person.

Here are Michael Hart's top 15 "Most Influential Persons":

1	Muhammad	Founder and main prophet of Islam, conquerer of Arabia, political figure
2	Isaac Newton	physicist, theory of universal gravitation, laws of motion, major developments in mathematics, optics, thermodynamics
3	Jesus	central figure of what would become Christianity
4	Buddha	founder of Buddhism
5	Confucius	founder of Confucianism
6	St. Paul	proselytizer of Christianity
7	Ts'ai Lun	inventor of paper
8	Johannes Gutenberg	developed movable type and made great advances in printing
9	Christopher Columbus	explorer, led Europe to the Americas
10	Albert Einstein	physicist, relativity, Einsteinian physics
11	Louis Pasteur	scientist, pasteurization, Germ Theory
12	Galileo Galilei	astronomer, accurately described heliocentric solar system, led way to Newton's work
13	Aristotle	Greek philosopher
14	Euclid	Greek mathematician, Euclidean geometry, author of various influential theories
15	Moses	major prophet of Judaism and leader of Israel

This list is the product of one man's research into the history of the world and into the influence that these persons still have in the world today. And how do we define influence? Is Mohammed ranked higher than Jesus because there are more Moslems in the world than Christians today? Should Confucius be ranked higher because his influence is most clearly seen within the country with the highest population?

Many of these men influenced only one area; should the list be broken into certain spheres of influence? Should we group Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Confucius, Paul, and Buddha together because of their influence on world spirituality and religion; T'sai Lun and Gutenberg together for their impact on world literature; Newton, Galileo, Euclid, and Einstein together for their help in understanding the world around us?

And can we consider chronology as well? T'sai Lun invented paper; several centuries later Gutenberg invented the printing press. Without paper, there would be no need for print, so whose influence is greater? Galileo's work led to Newton's work which led to Einstein's work - whose was more important?

15th century explorer Vasco da Gama was ranked #86 on this list. Do the Portuguese-speaking people of Brasil consider him more important than everyone else on the list? Have we considered that the men on this list may have differing rates of impact geographically?

It seems that my questions might be answered if I were to read this book [which I will probably do at some time within the next...5 years, so I'll do that and see Mr. Hart's opinions on greatness.

Clearly "greatness" is a very subjective matter when speaking about a person's influence. Does one good deed surpass several others on a scale of "greatness?" Perhaps we should each re-arrange these two lists according to our personal tastes and thoughts on these figures' works. Give me your input.