3Alfred Nobel

Yes, that Alfred Nobel. The Peace Prize one. I know, it’s a bit confusing. The fact is, that the entire establishment of the Nobel Prize was a bit of a mea culpa by Nobel himself from guilt over his development of dynamite. Sure, a couple blasting caps might look like small potatoes once Oppenheimer took out a good bit of Japan, but at the time, he was wracked with guilt.

When his brother, Ludvig Nobel, died, a French newspaper got the two mixed up and published a pre-mortem obituary of Alfred that called him a “merchant of death.” When he saw himself saddled with such a decidedly evil job description, he decided to change his legacy. He dedicated his fortune to establishing the Nobel Prizes, hoping that he could undo inventing the best way to blow people up. I have to think he’d be pretty happy with the results.

2Thomas Midgley

Unlike the earlier entries, the scientist Thomas Midgley’s inventions weren’t ever tied directly to violence. It wasn’t an intent to harm but instead a lack of critical knowledge that puts him squarely in the historical doghouse. If you research him, you’re likely going to find some incredibly unglowing reviews of his work that call him things like “The Most Harmful Inventor in History.”

So what did this all-time champions of “oops” invent? Bullets? Cigarettes? Modern health insurance? No, Midgley was the mind behind two separate innovations that would be high on the list of things we’d ask time travelers to scrub from the past. First was leaded gasoline, which researchers have found lowered the average IQ of the entire American population by two to three points. His other invention was CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, meaning that he’s at least partly responsible for global warming.

Most people want to be remembered fondly after their death, but I’d at least settle for the New York Times never saying, “There may be no other single person in history who did as much damage to human health and the planet.”