Isaac Newton and The Occult.

Isaac Newton

“…how did the force of gravitation manage to make itself felt across gulfs of empty space, without benefit of any medium of contact between the planets involved?

This absence of causal explanation for gravity in Newton’s theory prompted sharp criticism: Leibniz branded Newton’s conception of gravity “occult,” and Huygens called it “absurd.”

Newton agreed, calling the idea of gravity acting at a distance “so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”

Oh yes, we all have our doubts from time-to-time. And facts that don’t fit the prevailing worldview. And critics. (Yawn)

From Coming of Age in the Milky Way, a brilliant and accessible book on the history of science. Moshe Feldenkrais perhaps deserves his place in there, as does Milton Erickson and a few others I can think of. But someone will have to do the work. And science reporting and science history is itself susceptible to fads and human biases that suppresses that which is not understood or is merely inconvenient. But still….

Tags: Feldenkrais Science