Calling Newton a *kook* about some things in an effort to invalidate what he says about others IS trying to discredit him. Scientists wouldn’t know for several hundred years that alchemy wouldn’t work.
If he had claimed that in his day, his peers would have labeled him a *kook* instead, just like evos do to anyone who doesn’t buy the macroevoltion/speciation, naturalistic, random mutation, natural selection, no God allowed, version of the ToE today.
Newton was doing science according to the prevailing scientific wisdom of the day. If that makes him a kook, then it makes ALL the rest of them kooks, as well.
The scientific community does not allow for much room for dissent or out of the box thinking.
I don’t think I’m the one missing the point.
Have you developed a test for God that can be used in the scientific process? Such a test would go a long way to proving your point but until such a test exists science will have to remain neutral, not hostile, to the question of if God exists and what effect he has on the universe.