I think yours is the sophisticated view of progress rather than the naive "great man" theory. I subscribed to the "great man" theory that the great man pushed s

I think yours is the sophisticated view of progress rather than the naive "great man" theory. I subscribed to the "great man" theory that the great man pushed society's progress. Now I think that it is society's progress that creates the great man. We are taught to think that there was something special or even superhuman about newton, turing, etc. But the reality is that they were one of many highly intelligent people working on the same problems created by society's progress. Even if they didn't succeed or achieve, someone else would have. But humans have an innate myth making imperative and a desire to hero worship so we create heros. But reality and history is far more complicated than the idealized myths we create. Without newton, we'd still have calculus ( leibniz, et al ). Without turing, we'd still have computer science ( Church, et al ).