Comment by jcranmer

Some less obvious omissions on this list are major theological developments:

- Zoroastrianism's development of dualistic cosmology, i.e., that the present universe is locked in a cosmic struggle between ultimate good and ultimate evil (which underpins the modern theological foundations of Western religions like Christianity and Islam).

- The Vedic development of karma, which is similarly one of the central foundations of Eastern religions

- Confucian and other Axial Age Chinese philosophies (although Confucian is the main one well-known to modern Westerners)

There's also a tendency to favor theoretical developments over practical developments that preceded theory by a long time. Three-field and four-field crop rotations, ship keels, square-rigged ships, corned gunpowder, double-entry bookkeeping--these are all "minor" inventions that are little-known in the popular sphere that truly made impressive advancements in agriculture, sailing, warfare, economics.

At the same time, some of these developments are definitely overrated:

Copernicus's theory is actually almost completely and entirely wrong, and certainly defied evidence that even contemporaries were more than eager to point out (the lack of stellar aberration being the biggest problem of all). The only thing that it got right didn't even originate with Copernicus (it's Aristarchus who is the earliest known proponent of such a theory, and Copernicus was definitely aware of Aristarchus).

Similarly, Freud, while popular in the popular imagination of psychology, is generally considered almost completely discredited in his own field.