But it's a really bad example. In real history, Newton was able to keep quiet about views that would have gotten him fired and possibly imprisoned. Most of the

But it's a really bad example. In real history, Newton was able to keep quiet about views that would have gotten him fired and possibly imprisoned. Most of the "weird" Newtonian stuff the author is referring to are things Newton kept private, not stuff he published; we only know about them because of work done by historians in the 20th Century. In particular, we know from Newton's private writings that he had strong Unitarian tendencies (that is, he doubted the validity of the Trinity). Had he made those views public, he would certainly have been fired and possibly suffered worse. (By the late 17th Century, it was illegal for Oxford or Cambridge to hire or even teach people who weren't proper Anglicans; denying the Trinity would have put Newton into this category.)