Who had the Greater impact on Western civilization: Charles Darwin or Sigmund Freud? Takes the position of Fread having a greater impact.

Who had the greater impact on Western civilization: Charles Darwin or Sigmund Freud?

Freud did many great and wonderful things during his lifetime. He studied illnesses of the mind, advanced what little we knew at the time, and came to conclusions about things no one had ever thought about before. However, Darwin also did many wonderful and great things. Overall, Freud had more impact on society than Darwin did.

Freud did a lot more for us in both the immediate and long runs. He focuses his research on discovering and identifying what was behind who we were. "Sigmund Freud, physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist, and father of psychoanalysis, is generally recognized as one of the most influential and authoritative thinker of the twentieth century."

Freud was responsible for making the idea of the conscious mind and the unconscious mind popular. Working closely with the conscious mind is what Freud called the preconscious.

Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, smoking ...

Statue of Sigmund Freud in London, with the Tavist...

English: Entrance to Freuds consulting room

These can be most easily described as equal to memories that you are not currently thinking about, but can bring to mind at will. Freud argued that these two parts, the conscious and preconscious, were the smallest parts of the mind and that the largest part, by far, is the unconscious. "According to Freud, the unconscious is the source of out motivations, whether they be simple desires for food or sex, neurotic compulsions, or the motives of an artist or scientist. And yet, we are often driven to deny or resist becoming conscious of these motives, and they are often available to us only in disguised form."

Freud worked extensively, developing the theories of the id, ego, and superego. He taught is that the id translates an organism's needs into motivational forces. In German, this is called Triebe, which has been translated as 'drives' or 'instincts'.