Keith S. Taber
Ralph was a participant in the Understanding Science project. When I interviewed him in Y10 he suggested that what was particular to science was that with science it will always be the same, i.e., that the nature of science was that it was universal rather than relative to a particular place. Ralph had commented that "because they're kind of like, they are laws so…these things have to be true".
I: So in say maths you have these laws that are what, universal?
R: Yeah.
I: And science you think is the same sort of thing?
R: Yeah.
So Ralph was asked about the universal nature of laws in science:
I: So what laws do you know in science then that will apply anywhere?
R: Erm, well there's kind of like the laws of gravity and things, which are always there. But they can, that is one exception, because that can be changed depending on what planet you are on, but that's kind of like very, far off so, if you went on the moon and did physics there it might be ever so slightly different, but I'm not sure because I haven't been to the moon though.
…
R: And chemistry it's so – reactions and things – but the environments can change those, but not to a large extent, so, so iron will always react with something, no matter what, and two of the same element will not react together because they're already the same and things like that.
I: Mm?
R: Erm, yep, and biology's because most is kind of like is an average so, it can be different as well, but they're kind of like, saying they're all universal laws and all actually the same is kind of a bit untrue, but if like, there are exceptions to the rule in different places, so biology you can kind of like have erm illnesses or disfigurements that change how you look at biology, and things, which is kind of complicated and you don't tend to do that in this kind of level of biology, 'cause that's more kind of like that's specialised, that's more in kind of medical biology and things.
I: So it's a kind of 'unless' law, so, you know, a dog will always have four legs,
R: Yeah.
I: unless one of them's been torn off
R: Yeah.
I: or unless it is a mutant and grown an extra one?
R: Exactly, unless there is some kind of other, erm, other … event which … changes how that will work, so … like a snail would normally have no legs, but if you put loads of radiation on it, I dunno, maybe it would grow an arm or something.
It seemed Ralph's notion of a law of gravity was not the universal law of Newtonian physics, but something linked to the local strength of the gravitational field. (Later in the interview Ralph explained that the law of gravity is that things will always move towards the centre, but it is different on the moon*). In chemistry, Ralph seemed to see ideas about which substances reacted together as laws, although he acknowledge that in some cases these patterns were dependent upon conditions. In biology, Ralph associated laws with the normal forms of organisms, which again he knew could be changed by environmental factors.
In general then, Ralph's notion of scientific laws did not match the scientific notion of a law, which would generally operate at a 'deeper' level (i.e., a higher level of abstraction from observations), but seemed more at the level of 'facts'.
