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A common misconception is that scientific theories are rudimentary ideas that will eventually graduate into scientific laws when enough data and evidence have been accumulated. A theory does not change into a scientific law with the accumulation of new or better evidence. A theory will always remain a theory; a law will always remain a law.
The term "scientific law" is traditionally associated with the natural sciences, though the social sciences also contain laws. [11] For example, Zipf's law is a law in the social sciences which is based on mathematical statistics. In these cases, laws may describe general trends or expected behaviors rather than being absolutes.
Phrenology – a theory of highly localised brain function popular in 19th century medicine. Homeopathy – a theory according to which a disease can be cured by infinitesimal doses of the substance that caused it; Eclectic medicine – transformed into alternative medicine, and is no longer considered a scientific theory
Artin reciprocity law is a general theorem in number theory that forms a central part of global class field theory. Named after Emil Artin . Ashby's law of requisite variety, that the number of states in a control mechanism must be greater than or equal to the number of states in the system it controls.
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory."
The implication flows in only one direction, as in the syllogism used in the discussion on deduction. Therefore, it is never correct to say that a scientific principle or hypothesis/theory has been "proven" in the rigorous sense of proof used in deductive systems. A classic example of this is the study of gravitation.
The higher theory's laws are explained in DN model by the lower theory's laws. [5] [6] Thus, the epistemic success of Newtonian theory's law of universal gravitation is reduced to—thus explained by—Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, although Einstein's discards Newton's ontic claim that universal gravitation's epistemic success ...
For example, physical laws such as the law of gravity or scientific laws attempt to describe the fundamental nature of the universe itself. Laws of mathematics and logic describe the nature of rational thought and inference (Kant's transcendental idealism, and differently G. Spencer-Brown's work Laws of Form, was precisely a determination of the a priori laws governing human thought before any ...