DMcG

I agree with everything you have said. But even on those issues, I would tend to cut Mr. Newton, and perhaps most figures from our past some slack, certainly I would not judge them by our standards any more than I would be judged by theirs.

" I agree there is no excuse for racism, homophobia and misogyny either now or in the past."

The definition of those things have changed over time. Perhaps Sir Isaac would find India's legal acceptance of cetaceans as persons and the USA Supreme Court defining corporations as having superior free speech rights to people as strange as I do.

Perhaps in as few as 50 years time I will be called a violent racist because I ate a pilot whale steak when I was a child. Maybe PETA will have succeeded in its quest for personhood for meat animals and all of my many accomplishments will be cheapened by a digital upload of Steve Shaw, which by then would have earned personhood, condemning me for being mean to the AI (Artificially Intelligent "person" ) living on a microchip in my toaster.

It really comes down to one of the few "answers in Genesis" that has stood the test of time.

"The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Before they ate the fruit Adam and Eve could do no wrong, because they did not know it was wrong. Likewise Newton's dalliance with alchemy was not wrong because he did not know it wasn't science. Whether or not he engaged in racism, homophobia or misogyny does not depend on our understanding of the terms, but on his understanding. That is why the people who are activists against those things focus so strongly on eduction.