While there are countless numbers of scientists who have contributed to our well-being, there are a few that stand out among the rest for their remarkable accomplishments. I recently came upon an old book entitled Famous Men in Science by Sarah Knowles Bolton that was first published in 1889.

In her enjoyable and easy to read text, Bolton provides a glimpse of 14 distinguished thinkers, ranging from such luminaries as Carl Linnaeus to Louis Agassiz. Since the book is not readily available, here at the MSAC Philosophy Group we thought it might be helpful to select four biographies from Famous Men in Science and republish them in a new and readable format. To cover some of the major breakthroughs in the past four centuries we have chosen Galileo (astronomy), Newton (physics), Lyell (geology), and Darwin (biology). It is our hope that these small biographical vignettes will serve as intellectual appetizers and may whet the reader’s appetite for more.