Poet, skeptic, mud-enthusiast. Xenophanes (c. 570–478 BCE) mocked the gods, questioned human certainty, and found fossils on a mountaintop — which he took as proof the Earth had a past. He rapped in verse about theology, ethics, and epistemology centuries before TED Talks. A wandering critic of Homer and Hesiod, he wasn’t here for divine drama — he wanted a god worthy of thought. Not bad for a guy who probably performed his philosophy at dinner parties.