Talk:Scientific law

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Contents 1 Filll's attempt to find nonphysical scientific laws 2 philosophy of science discussion of natural law/scientific law 3 Confusion about laws and thoeries 4 Line removed from text

[edit] Filll's attempt to find nonphysical scientific laws

What other nonphysical scientific laws are there? here are some sites to look at:

• http://www.actahort.org/books/402/402_61.htm
• http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=68804
• RECAPITULATION THEORY OR BIO- GENETIC LAW IN EMBRYOLOGY (discarded now I presume)
• http://www.sph.umich.edu/biostat/programs/Zhaoabs.html says HWE is a scientific law
• http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2005/Projects/S0407.pdf something about hayflick limit (sp?) and biological law about divisions of cells?
• http://www.math.wvu.edu/~rmayes/4.1%20Exponential%20Functions.pdf refers to a "biological law" of population growth. This is just exponential growth I think. Sort of baby predator-prey analysis, Malthusian analysis etc.
• http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2005/hole.asp some suggestion of biological law of biodiversity
• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TVG-4CVR2C8-4&_coverDate=10%2F01%2F2004&_alid=509224972&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5534&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cd27dbacd728523a0a4ac120deac43b0

Some sort of universal mortality law. Not clear from abstract

• http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v401/n6756/full/401865a0.html a nature paper discussing a biological law of diversity

comment from this article it would appear that the Universal Growth Law is now accepted. David D. (Talk) 20:15, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Great. I want to get a short list of "biological laws" so that we do not imply that scientific laws are only physical laws or chemical laws (which are basically physical laws at their roots, anyway).--Filll 20:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200006)67%3A2%3C242%3ADOSL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y philosophy of science article about whether biological laws exist or not

[edit] philosophy of science discussion of natural law/scientific law

• law of nature article

[edit] Confusion about laws and thoeries

The second paragraph seems to be thoroughly confused about what the relationship between a law and a theory is. Laws are empirical facts (observations) and are always true to the error of measurement. Theories are models that try to explain these observations. So theories never become laws becouse they are more general (and not becouse they cannot be proven, which is true but not very relevant here).

Incidently the term law is usually applied when there someone finds a relationship which is yet unexplained by any theory or model. They are (at the time of their naming) sets of puzzles remaining to be solved.

86.101.162.160 01:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

No you are incorrect, according to my reading on this issue at the National Academy of Sciences. A law is not an observation. Sorry.--Filll

[edit] Line removed from text

Generally, scientific laws are taken to be proven to a degree somewhat beyond a scientific theory that is still under investigation.

I would agree with this. Does it need a source?--Filll 14:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)