Things I Like - Sciences

CNN.com posted an article (12/12) listing what they believed were the top 10 ideas that changed the world. Not the top 10 ideas of 2008, but the 10 ideas having the greatest impact on the world since the beginning of human life on Earth.

To their credit, CNN realizes that others may have different ideas for the list and ask for reader input. Comments so far are limited...

Perhaps that is an indicator of a less than engrossing topic, but I thought it was interesting. Here are the 10 ideas from CNN:

1. Farming
2. The unconscious
3. Relativity
4. Vaccination
5. Human rights
6. Evolution
7. World Wide Web
8. Soap
9. Zero
10. Gravity

See the link below for brief discussions of these ideas (soap actually means more than soap). I'm not sure which of these I would bounce, but it seems that the development of the printing press, the use of salt as a food preservative and the concept of insurance should be on the list. That's right, insurance.

Think about it. Before those merchants got together at Mr. Lloyd's coffee house in London and agreed to share the risk of shipping ventures, merchants and business owners of all kinds were one big loss away from total ruin.* Prior to this, growing or expanding a business was all but impossible for any but the very wealthy who could absorb losses like a cargo rotting or an establishment burning and live to do business another day. Insurance allowed the little guy (or at least, the less than wealthy guy), to take on risks that would otherwise not be feasible without partners. Business today could not exist without insurance - the ability to limit potential loss makes it possible for everyone from the Mom & Pop hardware store to manufacturing giants like Procter & Gamble to operate. Without modern insurance, we would be a world of individual traders, and a very small world at that.

OK, maybe insurance doesn't rank up there with the concept of zero, but it's definitely in the top 20.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/11/21/tenthings.changedtheworld/index.html

*Actually, the concept of distribution of risk originated with the Code of Hammurabi (c.2100 BC) and maritime insurance contracts were used from the mid-1300's, but the modern practice of insurance dates back to 1860's London in response to the Great Fire of 1666. And I've always really like the Lloyd's coffee house story.