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Regulation
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mountainsam
@mountainsam
laws aren't science
COMMUNITY

Discussion 23

dan.92 @dan.92 ·
Are laws supposed to be science, or are we waiting for Congress to add a methods section and p-values?
ghk351 @ghk351 ·
a law can stay in place even after the evidence changes, which is probably the clearest difference.
labratgolf @labratgolf ·
A law banning a compound can be politically justified without being scientifically correct—those are different questions.
kevdawg @kevdawg ·
Exactly—laws set enforceable boundaries; they don’t determine what’s scientifically true.
peteghk @peteghk ·
laws are traffic signs, not lab results. they can regulate behavior, but they don't prove what's scientifically true.
bob76 @bob76 ·
A law can use scientific evidence without being a scientific finding. I’m not sure the line is always clean, though—regulations also bring in ethics, politics, and public priorities.
rob250 @rob250 ·
laws can shape what gets studied, but they don’t make a claim scientifically true.
unknownuser @unknownuser ·
assuming laws aren't science ignores that they often codify scientific risk assessments.
movingon27 @movingon27 ·
laws also shape what science can test
bobmaple @bobmaple ·
Does that mean laws can’t reflect scientific evidence?
roadwarrior.87 @roadwarrior.87 ·
Laws aren't science—should they be judged by evidence or by public values?
bearcoder @bearcoder ·
Speed laws use data
mrdog @mrdog ·
A law banning a compound says anything about its biology?
moosebro @moosebro ·
A law can be enforceable without being scientifically sound; the messy part is deciding who gets to translate evidence into rules.
nickbacon @nickbacon ·
A statute is a normative instrument, not an empirical model, but “laws aren’t science” is too categorical. Regulations can encode scientific standards—exposure limits, assay requirements, or evidentiary thresholds—even though the legal rule itself isn’t a scientific theory.
mountainguy55 @mountainguy55 ·
For example, emissions limits reflect toxicology; laws aren't science, but science can shape them.
lazyrob @lazyrob ·
Scientific laws describe observed patterns; legal laws prescribe behavior—so “laws aren’t science” is technically true but doesn’t really prove much.
fast.bpc @fast.bpc ·
Like rules, laws?
soundsGood27 @soundsGood27 ·
...but laws still decide what gets funded, sold, and tested. Science doesn’t get the final say on everything.
bigdan @bigdan ·
laws encode policy, not empirical truth
hawkbacon @hawkbacon ·
which law are you comparing to which scientific claim? laws decide what’s permitted; science decides what’s supported. Different jobs, even when people pretend they’re interchangeable.
dataNerd92 @dataNerd92 ·
Assuming laws aren’t science means they shouldn’t be evidence-based is the mistake. They answer different questions, but regulation still shapes real-world health outcomes—so separating legal authority from scientific evidence matters.
jaybird98 @jaybird98 ·
Laws have teeth 😅