What's in a name?

[Draco]

That is what we have been trying to sort out with this thread.

[mcar]

It is no doubt that Darwin's name was so loud in the scientific world and no other names could ever match the noise since Darwin's achievement is really a good matter of going deeper and gradually realizing what happened before. The evidences and certain studies were somewhat collecting an almost final piece to the jigsaw puzzle and finally revealing the true picture of the past.

[alextemplet]

No doubt Darwin's personal influence was very considerable; however, he was not the only scientist to give his name to a particular discipline. In Galileo's day, the name of Copernicus was often used as a synonym for the heliocentric theory, and scientists today still speak of "Newtonian physics" and "Einsteinian relativity." Darwin's influence was powerful but not unique in the scientific community.

[Draco]

Like most other important scientific discoveries Darwin's theory saw seen as blasphemous by the church and ridiculed by almost everyone.
The reason that a scientists name is remembered is because it took so long for the theory to be acknowledged.

[alextemplet]

Perhaps it is also a by-product of the human side of scientific research, where the ambitions and reputations of individual scientists can often matter at least as much as the actual research and discoveries involved. Not unlike an intellectual form of athletics, I believe.

[mcar]

And such ambitions are really big deal.