On 7/8/25 8:16 AM, glen wrote:
Yeah. OK. After thinking about it a bit, Newton definitely qualifies. I guess I've always felt that he *wanted* to be a private seeker and was too insecure and triggered by criticism ... something I don't think is natural to scientists
. The old aphorism that highlights the paradox goes something like: If your mind is too open, everything falls out, too closed, nothing gets in.If your mind is too open, just about anyone can pour just about anything into it?
Newton just seems like he really wanted to be a mystic. But he was too often too correct and made a pesky wake he couldn't ignore. My naive and idealistic understanding of the Good Scientists™ I like are rapid updaters who change their minds all the time when presented with new information, but simultaneously great world-builders such that the new information wobbles into the network of facts organically.But I guess because he was so thin-skinned, he helped develop the rigor good criticism needs, even if he didn't seem very friendly about it. I guess it's like he didn't believe science (or alchemy) was *social* ... more Platonic. And that just seems anti-science at this point. Math? Yes. Science? No. The "mad scientist" trope goes hand-in-hand with Great Man Theory. But clearly, Musk has demonstrated we haven't matured out of that nonsense yet.
He was definitely a creature of his time...his reputation as an alchemist (now) exceeds that as a natural philosopher/scientist:
John Maynard Keynes, who bought many of the papers, said: "Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians."
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