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To: mlc9852; MineralMan
So are you saying there are laws of science that have been proved?

He didn't say that. You're trying to take his statement about one particular situation - whether or not an object that leaves Earth's gravitational field will not "come down", in the vernacular, unless it encounters another object with a gravitational field - and twist it.

Many on here tell me there are no laws - only theories. I thought gravity was a law but was informed it is still only a theory.

That is correct. I hope this finally clears up the confusion on your part.

753 posted on 01/05/2006 7:30:22 AM PST by highball ("I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson)
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To: highball
Actually it only adds to my confusion since MineralMan says that science can prove things and you say there are only theories. And even what science has "proved" often eventually turns out to be wrong. Makes sense to me.
754 posted on 01/05/2006 7:35:09 AM PST by mlc9852
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To: highball; betty boop; Alamo-Girl
[ Many on here tell me there are no laws - only theories. I thought gravity was a law but was informed it is still only a theory. ]

What gravity "IS" is a theory, that it is, is not..

785 posted on 01/05/2006 8:39:54 AM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole..)
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To: highball; mlc9852; MineralMan
Many on here tell me there are no laws - only theories. I thought gravity was a law but was informed it is still only a theory.
That is correct. I hope this finally clears up the confusion on your part.

Actually there are laws. The problem however is, that she thinks they are the next higher step from "theory".

Laws in science are, despite their name, merely descriptive and not prescriptive.
They are in other words a mathematical description of the regularities of a model. In most cases (actually I'm not aware that there are any exceptions) a model is only a good approximation of a natural phenomenon within certain boundaries which means that outside of these boundaries the laws are simply false (IOW they diverge too much from observed reality to be useful).

A good example of this is the ideal gas law which describes the behavior of a (nonexistent) ideal gas. Nevertheless, it is still useful because many gasses come pretty close to an ideal gas within a certain temperature and pressure range.

Now laws can be proven if you're working only with models because so far you're just doing mathematics. Doing science means checking whether these models (and the laws you derived from them) describe reality and to what extent because nature is under no obligation to comport with your models.

800 posted on 01/05/2006 9:46:53 AM PST by BMCDA (cdesign proponentsists - the missing link)
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