This is all much like asking what I think of middle eastern politics. Newton was the Moses of science spawning the “empirical law giver age” of science. But then reality stepped up to the plate when they ran into the speed of light problem. The law givers got demoted to dubious prophets, “theorists”, during the Einstein era. And of course, as with any questionable theory based mindset, there is always a devil, the Quantum Magi introducing the magic and mentality of numerology into the picture, “pure mathematics = the only reality”.
The new religion of science has taken the same course as all of those prior; law giving certainty, dubious prophets, masters of mysticism, and of course eventually, condemnation for unbelief. And asking my opinion of them is about like me asking you for your opinion of Isaiah, Melchizedek, the four corners of the Earth ontology, and numerology (R. Riemann was a modern era numerologist, “strict mathematician”, and seriously good at it. “Four dimensional space” is merely a pure mathematics ontology).
As you said, the Newtonian laws are largely an issue of chosen language and thus definitions of concepts. They presumed a Cartesian universe, solidity of objects, and forces causing motion and then defined their concepts based upon that. That worked fine until the speed of light problem. A coherent truth became harder to define.
Einstein had apparently been introduced to the problem in school under Minkowski and saw that if what he is being told was true, then one should be able to use these relativity equations in order to make truth coherent again. He was almost right. But even early in the game, Minkowski had already proven that those strong relativity thoughts could be entirely right. Minkowski had already worked out that if extrapolated, those equations demand holes in reality itself, “regions of incoherence”. That alone was enough to say “no” to the certain truth of relativity. But the god of empiricism stepped in with his usual “I don’t give a damn what is true. I just care about what I can use.” And the relativity equations were demonstrably useful.
The entire confusion in science has been the conflation of the map with the terrain. People like Riemann, Lorentz, and Maxwell were hard hitters and far more admirable philosophers than Einstein. Einstein took on the challenge of trying to form a perfect ontology based on subjectivity, but in the long run couldn’t get it to work. He was propped up as the greatest genius, and I don’t dislike the guy, but there were many far more genius thinkers than Einstein who had to help him and still couldn’t get Relativity to be a completely coherent ontology.
RM:AO is a truly coherent ontology from top to bottom. There are no “holes in reality”, no “independence from physicality”, nor inexplicable “axioms of magic”. But I am not much of a mathematician. I am far more a logician and ontologist (one who understands what “truth” means and the necessary distinction between truth and reality, the map and the terrain).
All of the famous people in the “enlightenment era” were at least partially right or “true” within their own ontological realm. But I can say the same thing about the prophets, priests, and monks concerning the Roman gods and the Hebrew spirits. Within their own ontology, they were very largely right, some very impressively so.
But none of their ontologies matched RM:AO for total coherency to literally an infinite degree and beyond.
If you were to just erase everything you had ever been taught and start over with a clean mental slate, RM:AO would be simple and obvious. And as you got into the more complex arrangements and concerns, many of the prior philosophers and prophets would emerge as useful pointers toward understanding complex situations. But unlike any ontology before it, at no point would RM:AO have to be rebooted with a different foundation. There can be no coherent mathematics, philosopher, or prophet to prove it untruthful. The reverse is more likely.