I will take the philosophical answer.

The microscope lets us examine ourselves and our environment, it tells us what we are and what our world is. The telescope lets us look beyond the stars, to distant galaxies. It tells us what we could be, what we could become, what we could achieve. The telescope makes us strive for greatness.

I love it. Great answer.

More benefited to science: microscope.
Because one wise man said: "First get to know yourself, before studying everything else"

Id say the telescope is more important. At its most basic form it is a weak microscope, isnt it? So with that in mind the telescope is really a prototype microscope. Without the telescope, we probably would not have microscopes.

Microscope. Without it, most of us would be dying of various illnesses before we could figure out how to use a telescope.

That's like saying "cloning or cure for aids? they both start with c so I figure they are completely related".

The microscope and the telescope are used for completely different things, it's hard to compare them.

The concept is the same though sid. The help us to see things our naked eye cannot.

You've clearly misread the question, I'm not asking which is better I'm asking which benefitted science and society more.

my turn.i have a telescope,but i also tried out a microscope, and as the sciencepapers write , even if ur're an amator astronomer u can discover supernovas, novas, comets, etc., so telescope! for example the youngest girl who discovered a supernova is 16 ys old. ofc that first u have to read about all those science books, cause without them even if u can use that telescope or microscope, u dont know where to look,or what to see,if u know what i mean.

BUT: a telescope needs good weather too, microscope doesnt