Foes of Evolution Set Sights on New Target: Gravity

If a group of concerned parents gets its way, high school physics students may soon be required to learn about alternative explanations of gravity. The parents say that a one-sided focus on Newton's so-called universal law of gravitation is unfair to students who don't believe in gravity. If they prevail, physics teachers may be forced to read a statement acknowledging that our understanding of gravity is just a theory.
Cole Walters, education correspondent

DOVER, PA—It is a staple of high-school physics classes: the story of Isaac Newton's encounter with a certain apple. As scientific wisdom would have it, Sir Isaac was sitting beneath a tree one afternoon when the offending apple dropped down upon his head, leading him to coin an explanation of one of the universe's greatest mysteries: why do things fall out of the sky? Read on...

Called the universal theory of gravity, Newton's so-called law is taught to physics students everyday. But a growing movement of parents wants to change that. They say that Isaac Newton's theory of acceleration and velocity is just that—a theory—and that forcing students to accept a Newtonian view of the natural world is unfair to those who don't believe in gravity.