i thought it was copernicus who established heliocentrism in the 16th century and explained the retrograde motions of planets that way. it had been proposed in ancient times by aristarchus as well. also, newton derived his the inverse square model from kepler's laws and it is not clear whether he or hooke or boulliau was the first to do it. regarding the statement about newtonian gravity and general relativity that "One does not approximate the other. Both are theories that describe facts", please note that according to general relativity, newtonian gravity only approximates universal gravitation and falls apart when gravity becomes too strong.

anyway, it was brilliant insight or "intuition" anyway you cut it. very interesting article indeed, and many thanks for posting it. not very easy to grasp but i am working on it.