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To: Woahhs
Theories, facts and laws in science are all different concepts and one doesn't change into the other.

Scientific facts are what have been carefully observed to be the case. This, however, does not mean that they cannot change if the observation methods advance.
Scientific laws are (often mathematical) descriptions of these facts and they are only descriptive and not prescriptive as the laws we are used to (like those that prohibit theft).
Finally, scientific theories are explanations of scientific facts.
So in other words, laws say what happens, while theories explain why it happens.

104 posted on 07/03/2002 12:10:41 PM PDT by BMCDA
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To: BMCDA
And so the difference between "scientific fact" and "law" would be....? How does a "fact" change with more accute observation?

Forgive me for saying so, but much of this reasoning reminds me of the guy who was perplexed because the universe was four billion years old when he was in grade school, and 15 billions years old when he graduated college.

131 posted on 07/03/2002 12:31:26 PM PDT by Woahhs
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