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Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

I am not anthropmorphizing science, let alone accusing it of anything. Instead, I am explaining Kuhn's work [or at least my reading of it]. However useful it may be to partition Newton's work into mechanics and cosmology, its our partitioning, not Newton's. The "General Scholium" [1] was one of the improvements Newton made to the first edition of Principia in the two decades between first and second editions. There are sociological reasons why students of science are not encouraged to read Newton for themselves.

[1]: http://gravitee.tripod.com/genschol.htm

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The General Sholium[0] was an addendum, not a set of corrections to The Principia. And what book doesn't have some corrections between the first and second edition?

> There are sociological reasons why students of science are not encouraged to read Newton for themselves.

Like what? Do you think physics teachers are afraid their students will find out Newton believed in God and then they won't be atheists? Do you think they're pushing materialism or "scientism" and rewriting history to that end? This is close to a conspiracy theory. I think you're ascribing malice or ill intent to what are almost purely pragmatic choices.

Here's the text of The Principia[1], read a few pages and imagine a physics student trying to make sense of it. When I finally opened it I found exactly what I had always been told I would find: something interesting but hard to read and not the best place to learn physics. I don't think there are any physics books today that prove the fundamentals of calculus in the middle of their discussion of physics. That's a pedagogical nightmare. Today you learn calculus and then you do physics with it, but Newton developed calculus to do physics so there were no calculus books he could assume his audience was already familiar with.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Scholium [1] - http://www.archive.org/stream/newtonspmathema00newtrich/newt...

Newton wrote Principia in Latin, not English. Latin being, at the time, the language of what Newton practised, natural philosophy and continuous with theology. There was no such thing as science. Thus, it was perfectly normal for Newton's thought to mature, and the Scholium reflected the progress of his thinking over two decades.

Aside from having to add Latin to the scientific cannon alongside German and English and Russian, the direction in which Newton's thinking evolved is disruptive in the context of contemporary science's self image...none of which is surprising given Kuhn's work.

Perhaps you should learn something from Kuhn and consider that attachment to your pet paradigm is holding you back.

When a scientist wants to build up the self-image of science they do the exact opposite of what you're suggesting. They use Newton as an example to prove that science is superior to the other disciplines he also practiced but bore no fruit.

The propensity of a not small portion of the professionally practising population of scientists to postulate the most high profundity to their belief system is a legacy of the discipline's origin among theologians and in the traditionally sectarian institutions that are universities. The proof of science's superiority is on as firm footing as proofs of god when it comes to logical validity, e.g. the Newton that is pointed it to is not the Newton who held the beliefs of Principia's author, as the Schollium demonstrates.

Be fair to theology, for it admits when it's proofs resort to revelation.

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