Intelligent Falling

Is the fight between the "theory of gravity" and "Intelligent Falling" the latest battle in public school science education?
As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

Burdett added: "Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power."

Well, I'm a gravitist - are you? Read the full story in this week's Onion.

UPDATE: I just learned that the man identified in a photograph as "Rev. Gabriel Burdett" is actually Sir John Sulston, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the mechanisms of worm development. The study of worms has given insight into human health and disease, including new insights into the mechanisms of Alzheimer disease, stroke, cancer, retinitis pigmentosa (a genetic disorder that causes blindness), diabetes, and kidney diseases.

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