When I studied physics, we did start with Aristotle. In both physics and philosophy you're not studying Ancient Greece necessarily because they are right, you're studying it because understanding the history of thought helps you understand modern thought.
But how common is that? Where/when I studied, history of science was a different major. Sure, we (undergrad students with physics major) knew about Newton and those inclined as much could study the historic context on their own, but otherwise everything (perhaps short of classic mechanic of the rigid body) before the late nineteenth century was of little interest.
