I really like the "standing on the shoulders of giants" quote because it brings into perspective the fact that direct comparison doesn't make a lot of sense, es

I really like the "standing on the shoulders of giants" quote because it brings into perspective the fact that direct comparison doesn't make a lot of sense, especially in fields that are continuously growing and evolving (like science and art) and every generation starts where the previous ones left off. Is Einstein a greater scientist than Newton? Are both of them better than Galileo? Now that would be a fun discussion at the pub, but with no real value. All of these guys benefited from previous work done by other "masters" and this helped them reach even greater heights. Even in sports like chess, where it's a lot easier to compare matches and ratings across decades and even centuries you could debate that the old masters had a fraction of the resources available to current masters so the comparison doesn't really hold.