Nancy Cartwright Argues Against Universal Laws of Nature

Nancy Cartwright, a philosopher at Stanford's philosophy of science department, contends that the universe does not adhere to fundamental laws. In her works "How the Laws of Physics Lie" (1983) and "The Dappled World" (1999), she characterizes nature as "dappled," resulting in inconsistent scientific understanding. She emphasizes the importance of causation, opposing Humean reduction and framing causes as Aristotelian concepts. While Newton's law of gravity is relevant only in a vacuum, explaining the movement of a 100-dollar bill necessitates a model of competing factors. Cartwright introduces the idea of "nomological machines" to achieve regularity in theoretical contexts. She challenges the reduction of causation to probability and critiques randomized trials for their lack of generalizability, advocating for a pluralistic approach to science and cautioning against the quest for fundamental laws, referencing particle colliders and cancer genetics.