Natural Law and Scientific Law in Everyday Life

When one observes a specific phenomenon, this can be boiled down to a scientific law. Scientific laws do not provide an explanation as to why this phenomenon occurs or why it is present in our world, they just state the event that is occuring. For instance, Newton’s Law of Universal Gravity is the phenomenon that every particle that exists attracts other particles throughout our world and even the entire universe with specific forces. The law does not explain why this occurs, for it is just known to exist. One of the first things done when a law is being discovered is test it. This not only determines whether it is valid or not, but it determines where and when precisely it is valid. Laws can be viewed at as mere evaluations to our worldly phenomena. With the Law of Gravity, it just observes the worldly phenomena that occurs. Yes, the law does mathematically evaluate how two separate bodies within a system interact, nonetheless the specific law does not explain the concept of gravity and how it precisely works. Gravity was not fully explained until three whole centuries later when Albert Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity (Bradford, Alina). Regardless of the lack of knowledge of gravity, Newton still discovered a law regarding it. Theories are not laws; and laws are just observations. If gravity was looked at as a theory, it would ask the question “why does this ball fall to the ground when it is thrown?”. If gravity was looked at as a law, then it would just state “this ball falls to the ground when it is thrown”.

This can be seen again with Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment. Gregor Mendel’s law observes how different traits are passed down to a set of offspring from two parents. This was done with a physical experiment that Mendel ran with pea plants. By breeding and crossbreeding these pea plants, he discovered a trend regarding the outcomes of the plants (Khan Academy). Some plants had rough seeds while others had smooth seeds. Some flowers were purple while other flowers were white. Regardless of the knowledge behind this discovery, Gregor Mendel still came up with the law regarding independent assortment and the way genes are expressed. The law does not describe the process of the law or why this genetic pattern occurs the way it does, for it just describes that it somehow and someway occurs. When Gregor Mendel came up with his Law of Independent Assortment, he did not know what DNA or chromosomes were. He only observed is own work and came up with the law due to his own research. Even though DNA was not discovered for another century, Mendel’s law is still accepted on a universal scale along with the explanation regarding DNA.

Going deeper into the scientific laws is when it crosses into a scientific theory. These theories are the actual explanations to the laws that are put into place. There is a huge difference between laws and theories that is very crucial to note. Laws are created as concept of an observation regarding a relationship between things in the natural world. These laws can both be based off of facts and even tested with hypotheses. A misconception that is highly common is that natural laws need to have theories to back them up. This is known to be false as this was not the case with both Newton and Mendel. Both of their laws at the time did not have theories to further explain their observations. A scientific law can be discovered and created with only these observations.

This brings us to the question, “can laws change or have exceptions?”. Even though an idea or observation can become a law, does this mean that it can never change? When one person discovers a phenomenon and a scientific law comes about, is it concrete? Is there ever any exceptions for scientific laws?

The whole point of science is to explain the world around us and to understand scientific explanations. If scientific laws are concrete, then there would be no reason to do any further research in the scientific field. By believing that scientific laws cannot be changed, then at some point there would be nothing else to learn about the world around us. This is not true for there is a never ending amount of knowledge one can obtain from our world. Without digging deeper into science and our world, then what would the point be to discover anything else. There are always new discoveries happening on a daily basis. As a result, the natural laws of the world are bound to change or have exceptions at some point.

Previously mentioned was the Newton’s Law of Universal Gravity and how it is one of the most known scientific laws. If it was believed to be concrete, then exceptions in the law would never have been found. This natural law does have exceptions when looking at the sub-atomic level. Newton's second law is no longer a good estimate for reality for very small systems, such as atoms, where the quantum mechanical effects of the world become noteworthy. In addition, Newton’s second laws also do not fully coincide with very large systems where the effects of general relativity become remarkable. This can also be seen again with Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment. Mendel’s laws tend to break down when traits are “linked” together on chromosomes. Further research done with inheritance and genes actually questions how genetics actually works. For instance, certain plants actually keep the genetic codes of ancestors to use when there are some mutations from their parents. With this discovery, questions arise regarding human genetics and how this may affect us humans. If more discoveries like this are made, then Mendel’s Law of Independent Assortment can have multiple flaws within it. When a law is continually tested, there eventually will be observations that will tweak these laws. With this being said, natural laws can have exceptions since knowledge and new discoveries are endless.

This is precisely how science works though. Laws are just idealized ideas to the real world and how its phenomenons work. These laws have boundaries, but these boundaries can be pushed in the right circumstances. These scientific laws are meant to be tested when we find them too constricted, and thus we eventually create better descriptions of them. Without this process, then new discoveries cannot be made. The process of pushing boundaries and finding new outcomes and discoveries is precisely why and how humankind advanced. If no questions were asked and boundaries within the scientific world were not pushed, then we may not have the advancements we have today. The natural laws of the world will always have exceptions when looking at them deeper. These laws can be changed and fixed to be more accurate. As time goes on, the way we view our world and the phenomenons around us will change and alter as humanity goes on. There is nothing wrong with correcting these laws, for these discoveries are very important for furthering our knowledge. The natural laws that we deal with everyday can have exceptions, and regardless of this, they are still deemed as natural laws.