It is also important to recognize that Newtons time had come. Newton doesn't make those discoveries 1000 years before or after. Our thoughts are placed in time, just as much as this message is in response to the timing of the authors post.
In addition, It's not too infrequent that you'll find another scientist who wrote about the same thing 30 years earlier, or in Newton's case with Leibniz, concurrent.
Rarely do we take a big view of the species, a creature that has been alive and thinking much longer than us, winding its way through time.
Yep, it's a reference to homosapiens. We have been talking to each other for a while now, spreading our knowledge. It's the stories we pass on, logic, math, physics and medicine that predicated inhabiting nearly everywhere and becoming so many. We are on a higher-order mutation now, many thoughts live and die in a generation. The advantageous ones stick around (eg. Newton's). We pass them on from generation to generation. Now we are more connected, and it's moving faster. Stay cool and and enjoy the ride cousin.
In addition, It's not too infrequent that you'll find another scientist who wrote about the same thing 30 years earlier, or in Newton's case with Leibniz, concurrent.
Rarely do we take a big view of the species, a creature that has been alive and thinking much longer than us, winding its way through time.