The Errors & Animadversions of Honest Isaac Newton by Sheldon ...

probable [to Newton] that the creation of Earth described in Genesis was onlyone in a series of Creations.” (The Aztecs, incidentally, held a similar butmore explicit view: that the world had been created and destroyed four timesbefore its current incarnation.) As for the future, Newton helpfully suggestedthat “the Satellites of Jupiter can take the places of Earth, Venus, Mars ifthey are destroyed, and be held in reserve for a new Creation.” Dangerousthoughts these! Newton never dared publish his unorthodox cosmogony, whichact would certainly have jeopardized his position, and perhaps his life.In summary, Newton certainly was a creationist in the sense of seeking,as best he could, scientific support for the account of Creation as given inthe bible. Had he lived today, would he be a creationist in its present sense?Would Newton have continued to believe the biblical story of Creation, giventhe evidence we now have for the gradual evolution of the features and creaturesof our planet? Or, for the birth of the entire visible universe 14 billionyears ago in the Hot Big Bang? I doubt it, but we shall never know. Whatwe do know is that Newton, warts and all, was surely one of the greatestintellects the world has known.BibliographyI. Newton, Opticks, reprint & transl. (Dover, 1962, NY)I. Newton, Principia, reprint & transl.(Prometheus, 1995, Amherst, NY)Newton, eds. I. Cohen & R. Westfall (Norton, 1995, NY)F.E. Manuel, Isaac Newton, Historian, (Belknap, 1963, Cambridge)Optical Papers of I. Newton v.1, ed. I. Shapiro(Cambridge University Press, 1984, Cambridge)Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times v.1,(Oxford University Press, 1972, NY)G. Holton, Introduction to Concepts and Theories in PhysicalScience, (Addison Wesley, 1973, NY)M. Nauenberg, Robert Hooke’s Seminal Contribution to OrbitalDynamics, http://mike.ucsc.edu/ michael/hooke5.pdf,and private communication.12