This is an interesting conversation, if I may join. I am going to side with Iain on this one. I understand and absolutely agree with Jimmy's position but I would say that a life well-lived is of the greater importance. I am glad we have the opportunity to live at all, and Fleming has gone a long way to helping that, but the logical extension of that argument would venerate anyone who has promoted the live we are currently living. Is this really the best we could do?

Consider: there is no way to know how Europeans would have coped with infection had penicillin not been invented. Is it the best solution possible? There's no way to know that, and there's no way to know how things would have gone without it. However, we can say with certainty that it is not the only way to deal with infection because the rest of the world was getting on fine before the discovery.

In my opinion, the quality of a person's actions determines their life. Fleming's actions are laudable and have allowed people to stay alive; Burns works encourage people to truly live. The argument is close: "If you weren't alive you wouldn't be reading Burns." Both are valuable but, all else being equal, I would say that being alive is not enough, I want to be inspired. Fleming has certainly help me live but Burns has helped to shape the quality of the actions of people's lives.