What makes a theory become a scientific law?

Answer 1

A theory is a hypothesis verified by mathematical description and/or much observational evidence. A scientific law is a theory that has continually proven itself and is widely accepted by the scientific and public communities.

As Tanya mentioned, both theories and laws must exist without reasonable and repeatable evidence to contradict them.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Philosophically, a scientific theory can never be proven to be correct - it can only be disproven (or never disproven).

The previous poster is right about gravity, et al. being, technically, a theory.

It is curious why, in history of science, some theories have become regarded as laws. Perhaps theories that can be described and understood in mathematical terms are called laws because they can be proven (mathematically). Or perhaps there are no natural laws, but only theories - after all, the theory of gravity could be disproven - if you were to throw a rock off a cliff and observe that it didn't accelerate toward the center of the Earth at 9.8 m/s2 you could disprove gravity. This is unlikely to happen (and of course it would have to be repeated and verified), but it is possible.

As a side note it is extremely important to understand that calling something a theory is the highest possible honor you can give to an idea and I would really like to see the colloquial use of the word theory (as a guess or supposition) disappear from use.

Answer 4

I see a more fundamental difference. When we observe a phenomenon that we consider universally true, and we have found no exceptions, we call it a law. The laws of thermodynamics are an example. We can observe and predict the attraction between all masses. We call that the law of gravity. We are working intensely on many theories about how and why it works. We still don't have one that we're satisfied with. Theories answer different questions, so a theory is unlikely to ever be called a law.

Answer 5

It doesn't happen. Theories are like the master folder that CONTAIN laws and facts and observations. Theories already transcend laws, they are more useful than laws because they can explain what happened as opposed to simply predicting the outcome (and they can do that too, since they contain laws).

Think about it - gravity is 'still' a theory, and will always be one, but that doesn't mean you can fly when you jump off your house. Atomic theory is a theory, but it provides power to your house. The theory of relativity is a theory, but it gave us GPS systems. Quantum theory is a theory, but it gave us MRI machines.

Answer 6

Lots of proof that it is true, and no proof to the contrary? imho

Answer 7

empirical proof and the validation of time