Chemist voted 'top living genius'
Posted by Neil on Tue 30 Oct 2007Categories: Reader's posts | [2] Comments
In a slightly bizarre poll, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman (creator of LSD) has come top of a list of ‘greatest living thinkers’.
You can see the poll and read a story about it at the Daily Telegraph website (you may need to register) here.
The poll was conducted by Creators Synectics, a global consultants firm, by emailing 4,000 Britons asking each for 10 living ‘geniuses’. A panel of six experts in creativity and innovation then assigned them scores in categories like achievement, popular acclaim and intellectual power.
I’m pleased to see Fred Sanger is equal 5th with Nelson Mandela, but a little concerned to see that Simpson’s creator Matt Groening just pipped the two of them to 4th spot!
The list looks pretty crazy to me, but it’s fun seeing people like Mr Kalashnikov (Small arms manufacturer) rubbing shoulders with JK Rowling (author of the Harry Potter books), film-maker Ken Russell and neurobiologist Erich Jarvis in joint 83rd!
You can read more about Hoffmann and LSD here.
Does anyone have any better ideas who the ‘greatest living genius’ is?
Tue 30 Oct 2007 at 1:47 pm
Some other interesing bits:
Bill Gates and Osama Bin Laden share 43rd position.
67 for Steve Wozniak, but no placing for Steve Jobs?
Only one Tenor (Placido Domingo).
Perhaps also interesting to note: they spelled Stephen Hawking’s name wrong.
Fri 2 Nov 2007 at 11:36 am
Who among the general public would actually be able to name Hoffman off the top of their heads, or even Steve Jobs for that matter and as for spelling Hawking’s name wrong, that happens every where you see various permutations of Richard Hawkins, Steven Dawkings, Richard Hawking, Steven Hawken, all kinds of mashups of these two great thinkers.
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