Kevbo

There's a story floating around on creationist websites that describes Newton discussing the need for a "maker" of the solar system with an atheist friend. Many of these sites attribute this story to the following book:

"'The Truth: God or evolution?' by Marshall and Sandra Hall, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI." found at this site (scroll down a bit to "A moment in history..."

Does anyone know whether or not this story is true, and what primary source it comes from?

KC

I've heard this story before, and frankly, I think it is apocryphal. Besides, even if it is true, Newton screwed up big-time, since models of solar systems are known to be designed. If any conclusion can be called incongruous, its the one which extrapolates design to that which is being represented.

KC

Minnesota

The fable from Kevbo's link above

• A Moment in History...
  
  That a maker is required for anything that is made is a lesson Sir Isaac Newton was able to teach forcefully to an atheist-scientist friend of his. Sir Isaac had an accomplished artisan fashion for him a small scale model of our solar system which was to be put in a room in Newton’s home when completed. The assignment was finished and installed on a large table. The workman had done a very commendable job, simulating not only the various sizes of the planets and their relative proximities, but also so constructing the model that everything rotated and orbited when a crank was turned. It was an interesting, even fascinating work, as you can image, particularly to anyone schooled in the sciences.
  
  
  Newton’s atheist-scientist friend came by for a visit. Seeing the model, he was naturally intrigued, and proceeded to examine it with undisguised admiration for the high quality of the workmanship. ‘My! What an exquisite thing this is!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who made it?’ Paying little attention to him, Sir Isaac answered, ‘Nobody.’
  
  
  Stopping his inspection, the visitor turned and said: ‘Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this. Newton, enjoying himself immensely no doubt, replied in a still more serious tone. ‘Nobody. What you see just happened to assume the form it now has.’ ‘You must think I am a fool!’ the visitor retorted heatedly, ‘Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I would like to know who he is.’
  
  
  Newton then spoke to his friend in a polite yet firm way: ‘This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?’
  
  Sir Isaac Newton Solar System Story (from the book: ‘The Truth: God or evolution?’ by Marshall and Sandra Hall, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI)

Hmm.........sound anything like those Sunday prayer meetin' stories that preachers are so found of concocting? All nicely put together with the actual dialog, "'Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this.'" and character reactions "Newton . . . replied in a still more serious tone." and "the visitor retorted heatedly." Think this little story is anymore honest in the "facts" it purports to establish than the supposed duologue and reactions it implies actually took place? Not in a pigs eye. And, who do you think kept record of this trite exchange of words for all posterity, Newton or the mysterious "atheist-scientist" friend? Until someone can produce a reliable source for the story, it's simply creationist crap.

Caligula

One thing wrong with this story: Sir Isaac Newton died nearly one hundred years before the Origin of Species was published.

Jesse

There's a variant of the story on this page:

This page seems a bit more "academic" than a lot of the creationist ones, so maybe its version of the story is closer to the truth, or at least it might have been the "original" story which the Newton story was a corruption of. Also, there is a type of mechanical solar system model known as an "orrery" which was not invented by Lord Orrery but was named after him (see this page) so it would make sense if Orrery was the scientist in the story. The above page also mentions that this Lord Orrery was Charles Boyle (and this page confirms that the Lord Orrery in the story was Charles Boyle), relative of the famous scientist Robert Boyle (who came up with Boyle's Law).

Kevbo

Thanks for the detective work, Jesse, that makes a lot more sense (I couldn't believe that Newton, who formulated the classical law of gravity, would not realize that gravity could form planets even if he was a staunch Christian).

Jesse

Well, Newton did believe that the changing gravitational influences on a planet from all the other planets would cause orbits to be unstable in the long term, and that God would periodically need to intervene to reset things, although I don't know about his views on whether solar systems could form naturally. His views on divine intervention to correct instabilities led to the following famous criticism by Leibniz:

Later, Laplace provided a calculation which seemed to show that planetary orbits would not be as sensitive to perturbations as Newton thought, although this page suggests that Laplace made too many simplifying assumptions and that chaos theory makes the question of long-term stability of orbits a lot trickier to resolve.

RBH

"The Myopic Watch Mender." Ya know, I'd swear there's a book idea in there somewhere ...

RBH

SLD

One of the big clues that both stories are apocryphal is the idea of an outspoken atheist in 17th Century England. Not very likely. There may have been atheists at that time, but they damn sure kept their mouths shut.

SLD

Joe Meert

Newton spent a lot of his time on alchemy and wrote more voluminously on prophecy than he did on science. He also was clearly anti-trinitarian.

Cheers

Joe Meert