Re: [asa] Theory of gravity

Something struck me that I cannot fully back up, but it seems that the
Newtonian laws and laws of thermodynamics go back a while, while the
theory of relativity, quantum theory, theory of evolution and the like
are of more recent vintage. However, some individuals tried to use "law"
to bolster claims, like Haeckel's law of recapitulation. I have drawn a
blank on the dating of the Fick mentioned.
Dave (ASA)

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:08:09 -0500 "Randy Isaac" <randyisaac@comcast.net>
writes:
Merv,
    I'm a bit uncomfortable with the view that a law is primarily a
theory that has passed more tests. George said it better when he pointed
out that these labels are used somewhat loosely and we don't derive as
much significance from the label as we do the content and how it was
derived and what it means. In very general terms, I would think that
"laws" are more closely related to "equations" than to "theories."
Specifically, "laws" tend to be the equations that are more useful and
fundamental--the starting point for the derivation of equations that
apply in specific situations. We say "Newton's laws of motion" but
"Schrodinger's equation" even though the latter is more rigorous and
passes more tests. We say "laws of thermodynamics" or "Fick's laws of
diffusion" rather than "theory" because they are equations that can be
applied in specific situations to calculate specific effects. A theory
would tend to encompass the bigger picture of why these equations hold as
in "diffusion theory." We say "theory of relativity" and the
"relativistic equations" or "Einstein's equations" and mean slightly
different things with it. The theory certainly includes the equations but
tends to refer to the reasoning process behind it. Hence "quantum theory"
and the "Dirac equations."
    Of course, the use of the word "theory" as a "tentative hypothesis
postulated for possible future verification" is a legitimate use of the
word but it is by no means the only use and it is wrong to attribute this
meaning to situations where the meaning is closer to that in my previous
paragraph. In other words, the use of the term "theory" by itself
provides no clue to the degree of verification or validity of its
contents.
     In this sense, the phrase "law of evolution" would make no sense.
Those who would use this phrase as a means of connoting more validity
than the "theory of evolution" are making the same error in usage. The
true laws underlying evolution turn out to be the laws of thermodynamics
and quantum mechanics but we don't know anywhere near enough of the
specific energy levels and multi-dimensional potential energy landscape
to do much with them. When the day comes that we can write the
Hamiltonian for the entire human genome and solve Schrodinger's equation
rigorously for an arbitrary environment, then perhaps we can start
talking about calculating probabilities. I don't think that will be next
year.

    Randy

    
----- Original Message -----
From: Merv
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 8:18 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Theory of gravity

One way that I have put it to my science students is that a law is like a
theory that has withstood the tests of time; which is not the same as
calling something "proven" (a term more apropos to mathematics than
science), but it just shows the highest degree of confidence that science
confers by means of a label. This is more simplistic than the nuances
into which you delve below. But I would venture that those who want to
refer to the "law" of evolution (and I have heard this expressed), do so
with more political / metaphysical motivation than other more purely
scientific motives. Scientists themselves, I think, are not so caught
up in these attempts at hard categorization because they are aware of
the constant flux between those two concepts as you allude to. And the
"only a theory" retort against evolution also betrays a lack of awareness
about that same flux, and how highly regarded a "theory" can actually be.
 

--Merv

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Received on Wed Nov 21 23:00:00 2007