It depends if you give more weight to human history and the politics of calendars, or to Earth-scale physics.
Ah that doesn't make much sense. Newton's birth was human history… the calendar is a human construct.
You could tick off any number of "legitimate" dates using the Chinese calendar, or Mayan calendar, or the Talmudic calendar, etc., etc.
Of course they would all be referring to the same specific moment in time.
What does make sense is
“Imagine a world in which we are all enlightened by objective truths rather than offended by them."
But if you want to be bitch about Newton, there are a few handles there ;- )
Wasn't he that freaky alchemist and ruthless Warden of the Mint and some say mad as a hatter
(they even claim to have the hair clip that proves it.)
But then that's one of the beauties of science, it's about the evidence collected and the scientific contributions themselves,
not so much about the person… well at least in the best of all worlds :coolsmirk:
I simply get annoyed at some people's reaction to atheist comments that are far less objectionable than religious comments that are made toward atheism every day. But no matter how aggressive and downright fear-mongering theists' remarks are they are accepted and few people make a point about their objectionable content or tone.
Yet when non-believers make comments--usually far less aggressive--they are excoriated for them, as if they were upsetting some kind of accepted standard that allows believers to say anything they wish while non-believers are treated as pariahs for expressing an opposing view.
Exactly! I'm always surprised when people describe, for example, Richard Dawkins as being abrasive, aggressive, arrogant, etc. In reality, Dawkins' is rather soft-spoken, extremely polite, and he rarely ever raises his voice. He criticizes religion because, well, religion need to be criticized. It amazes me when Dawkins debates a theist calmly and politely while the theist acts cranky and childish--and then people say Dawkins was mean and disrespectful.
Talk about a double standard!
Newton made many contributions. But THE world changing contribution was Principia.
And, indeed, Tyson seems to think Newton did Principia before he turned 26. He lays out his imagined time here: My Man, Sir Isaac Newton.
Tyson says a friend asked Newton why do planets orbit in ellipses? Newton supposedly said I don’t know, I’ll get back to you. Newton goes home, invents integral and differential calculus. And then comes back with the answer. And then Newton turns 26.
It was in Principia that Newton explained elliptical orbit as well as Kepler’s laws. And it was Edmund Halley’s famous question on the shape of orbits that prompted Newton to write Principia.
Halley asked the question in 1684 when Newton was in his 40s.
There is so much wrong with Tyson’s imagined timeline and his claims regarding Isaac Newton. See historian Thony Christie’s critique: Why doesn’t he just shut up?
In a nut shell, Tyson has Newton single handedly doing in two months on a dare what were actually the collaborative efforts of many people over many years.