Where Do the Laws of Nature Come From?

mlimber writes "The NYTimes science section has up an interesting article discussing the nature of scientific laws. It comes partly in reply to physicist Paul Davies, whose recent op-ed in same paper lit up the blogosphere and solicited flurry of reader responses to the editorial page. It asks, 'Are [laws of nature] merely fancy bookkeeping, a way of organizing facts about the world? Do they govern nature or just describe it? And does it matter that we don't know and that most scientists don't seem to know or care where they come from?' The current article proceeds to survey different views on the matter. The author seems to be poking fun at himself by quoting Richard Feynman's epigram, 'Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.'"

Comments

Must theories really be falsifiable?

[MichaelCrawford]

Someone posted below that intelligent design isn't science because it's not falsifiable.

Now, I don't support ID, but I also don't see how falsifiability is a requirement for something to be scientific.

Sure, it's convenient, in that it allows you to eliminate theories that eventually are proven false.

But the Universe is under no obligation whatsoever to cooperate with the aesthetics of human scientists. It could well be that there are laws that aren't falsifiable.