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Full Idea
Boyle's Law generalises a mass of messy data culled from an apparatus; Snell's Law is an experimentally derived law deducible from theory; Newton's First Law derives from concepts and thought experiments; Mendel's Law used an experimental procedure.
Clarification
Snell's Law concerns the refraction of light
Gist of Idea
Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures
Source
Rom Harré (Laws of Nature [1993], 1)
Book Ref
Harré,Rom: 'Laws of Nature' [Duckworth 1993], p.10
A Reaction
Nice examples, especially since Boyle's and Newton's laws are divided by a huge gulf, and arrived at about the same time. On p.35 Harré says these come down to two: abstraction from experiment, and derivation from deep assumptions.
| 17549 | Seven theories in science: mechanics, heat, electricity, quantum, particles, relativity, life [Heisenberg, by PG] |
| 8365 | Some laws are causal (Ohm's Law), but others are conceptual principles (conservation of energy) [Wright,GHv] |
| 17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
| 6616 | Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis] |
| 15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
| 15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
| 15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
| 3407 | Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause [Kim] |
| 6781 | There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird] |
| 16166 | Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N] |
| 9488 | Laws are either disposition regularities, or relations between properties [Bird] |