THE LAW excerpts

Title, introductory notes and excerpts selected by James Craig Green

Excerpts from THE LAW by Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850):

1998 version by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

PDF file available as a free download from FEE (www.fee.org)
http://fee.org/library/detail/the-law-3 

Forward by Walter Williams
Introduction by Richard Ebeling

Introductory Bastiat quotes selected by James Craig Green (craig@waterwind.com):

Life, liberty and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place…

 

The Law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.

 

If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the most simple, easy to accept, economical, limited, non-oppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable – whatever its political form might be…

 

It can be further stated that, thanks to the non-intervention of the state in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in a logical manner. We would not see poor families seeking literary instruction before they have bread. We would not see cities populated at the expense of rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of cities. We would not see the great displacements of capital, labor and population that are caused by legislative decisions.

 

The sources of our existence are made uncertain and precarious by these state-created displacements. And, furthermore, these acts burden the government with increased responsibilities…

 

But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense…

 

Property and Plunder

Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.

 

But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain – and since labor is pain itself – it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.

 

When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of the law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of work… All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.

 

But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.

This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power he holds.

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter – by peaceful or revolutionary means – into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws!

Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participating in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.

 

It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution – some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.

ENTER THE DRAGON - WITH BASSETS

by James Craig Green

You might think from the title this is about two unrelated subjects, but both are about applied philosophy. In short, I learned some of the most useful philosophy of my life from Bruce Lee and the Basset Hounds and other dogs my late wife Kay and I trained over more than a quarter-century training dogs together.

Kay and I got our first Basset Hound in 1972 as a pet for the kids. But, like heroin, we ended up with as many as eight at one time, and a total of more than 20 dogs, maybe as many as 25. When Kay died of cancer in 1998, we had but one dog, a Basset, left, as we had already decided to get out of most dog activities.

In about 1976 or so, we joined a tracking training class taught by our friend Carole-Joy Evert, a neighbor in Littleton, Colorado where our kids grew up. Tracking is a sport that contains some of the elements of search and rescue, such as dogs following human scent in the field by using their superior sense of smell to hunt. A couple of years earlier, Kay had taken two or three of our Bassets to obedience class, and got very interested in that activity as a sport by the American Kennel Club (AKC).

In both obedience and tracking, we found an extreme amount of dogma in dog training experts who had never trained a stubborn hound before. One obedience trainer, who had Doberman Pinscers, kept saying "this will work, I guarantee it," as each and every thing he tried failed. It didn't take Kay long to find trainers/teachers who knew something about the hound temperament. Scenthounds like Basset Hounds were bred to hunt together in packs, but not to be micromanaged in their behavior like some herding breeds, for example. Most dog trainers at the time practiced behavior modification, which is a very rigid, mechanical method to reinforcing specific behaviors by reward and punishment. It works best with dogs who are very willing to please their masters. Unfortunately, most Basset Hounds are anarchists - which drives many dog trainers almost crazy. But, Kay and I loved their independent sprirt and the challenge of treating them as living, thinking equals instead of slaves or robots.

To make a long story short, in both sports (obedience and tracking) we found that positive reinforcement worked better than punishment, but especially in tracking. After an insightful 1977 seminar with Glen Johnson, a famous Canadian tracking judge, trainer and teacher, we began to branch out on our own.

One of the first things we learned is that Johnson's rigid approach, which worked with his German Shepherds and other high energy, obedient dogs, didn't work for the hounds. Through trial and error, we learned that our hounds were easily distracted, and didn't like finding the articles like gloves and scarves on the track. Although we changed some of his teaching, as long as we trained tracking dogs, we continued to apply many lessons taught to us by Glen Johnson.

So, we revamped our whole approach to tracking and other dog training activities...


ENTER THE DRAGON

Bruce Lee, the famous martial artist and movie star, was born in 1940, which on the Chinese calendar was the year of the dragon. The calendar recycles a dozen animals to represent ancient Chinese beliefs that people born in particular years are supposed to have certain personality traits in common. Although I studied Tai Chi and many western philosophies for many years, I never thought about any connection between philosophy and dog training. I forget when but one day, a light bulb went off in my head connecting Bruce Lee's experience breaking from the traditional, dogmatic, never-changing beliefs of ancient martial arts with my dog training experience.

In Bruce Lee's famous 1973 film "Enter the Dragon," he used the movie to explain his philosophy of life - including his radical new approach to martial arts - to both western and oriental audiences. After being a fan of Bruce Lee for years, it finally dawned on me that his break from the rigid, dogmatic religion that was ancient Chinese martial arts was similar to what Kay and I had discovered in our dog training. Our approach involves constant change in response to every new reality, as opposed to following some grand plan months after it has repeatedly failed to achieve our goals.

After training tracking dogs for several years with limited success, we essentially started all over again from scratch, because the never-changing, dogmatic beliefs we were taught didn't work for our dogs. So, we came up with a new philosophy - which I call "Small Successful Steps." Although our Canadian tracking mentor Glen Johnson had inspired us with many new ideas in 1977 when we took his two-day seminar in Golden, Colorado, we hadn't yet connected all the dots.

Like Bruce Lee's break with the traditional, dogmatic approach to martial arts, we broke with tradition and decided to train week-to-week instead of following the same plan for several weeks. As with learning any skill, sometimes what you expect the dog to do and what he actually does are very different. Many of my friends in the tracking community seemed to rigidly apply their dogma on how to train a dog the same way over and over again, without effectively correcting mistakes soon enough. Kay and I learned that our dogs began improving by leaps and bounds, once we decided not to apply the same old rigid program week-to-week and month-to-month. Our great breakthrough was listening to our dog telling us what worked, and what didn't.

Essentially, our training approach evolved into changing the training plan after every training sesson, if necessary. Unlike the rigid plans made weeks ahead of time, which often resulted in dogs getting more and more frustrated week after week with their escalating failures, our new plan included observing and correcting small problems immediately before progressing to the next step. This often meant GOING BACK to an earlier phase of training where the dog was having success, and then working slowly through the problem until it had been solved. Many of my friends failed dozens of tracking tests without ever passing, for their unwillingness to change their training approach. But, most of my friends who stayed with the sport for more than a few years eventually learned some variation of what I am describing, though some breeds have to be trained differently than others.

Hounds and Terriers, for example, are often very stubborn, and don't give a damn what you want. Unlike Border Collies, some German Shepard and other working/herding dogs, they were not bred to require constant instructions from their human handlers to do their job. For example, if you've ever watched a Border Collie herding trial, you will see the dog lives on frequently-changing commands, by whistle, voice or arm motions, to change their behavior instantly. In other words, they work like robots. This is exactly what a sheepherder wants to control flocks of sheep, but different breeds have different skillsets resulting from different breeding and training goals. Owning a Border Collie was one of the delights of my life, as they are exciting, energetic, and always moving. I used to say "The difference between night and day is not enough to describe the difference between a Border Collie and Basset Hound." But, Basset Hounds and some other breeds were not selected for obeying their owners, so much as working to solve problems on their own. Therefore, in our experience training Bassets in tracking, we learned that "Less is More."


CONCLUSIONS

When Kay and I learned to LET THE DOG TRAIN US, rather than impose our desires by force from the top down, our success in tracking dog training exploded. Each week, we would evaluate the dog's performance, determine if we should do something different, and make changes if necessary before the next training session. Sounds simple, but not if you've been taught that you have to do the same thing over, and over, and over... no matter what. Sometimes, if we decide we have a frustration or temperament problem, the best approach is to not track for a while, maybe even several weeks. I recently applied this appoach to helping my old friend Carol Makowski in Boulder, Colorado with her Basset bitch Crystal. We had trained intensively last spring, and we both thought Crystal was ready to pass a tracking test. But, she failed two or three tests, so we took a summer break. This fall, with minimal training over about three or four training sessions, Crystal earned her TD title with a motivated, near-perfect performance! Less really WAS more!

Below are links for the tracking articles I wrote over six years as the Tracking Columnist for TALLY HO, the Basset Hound Club of America monthly magazine. I stopped training dogs after Kay died, but continued to judge tracking tests for many years, retiring from that sport in 2009.

My TALLY HO training articles (some co-authored by Kay) over six years are listed below.

(The last three summarize our philosophy from a quarter-century of dog training):

Craig's Dog Tracking Articles


"Simplify - eliminate the non-essential"
--Bruce Lee


Craig
November 2012

CHARACTERISTICS I ADMIRE MOST

by James Craig Green


As I approach the best years of my life (almost 66), I contemplate things I didn't think to write down before. One of these is the characteristics I have grown to admire in others, especially those I think inadequate in myself. This provides incentive for self-improvement.

I list only four characteristics here, so as not to dilute what I think is the superior importance of these few.

1. COURAGE

I place courage first, because it is the one thing more than anything else I wish I had more of. From what I know of others, I suspect this is an almost universal failing in people, though some may not recognize or strive for it as I do.

I split courage into two categories.

Physical courage is like that of a soldier who wins a medal, or more commonly, from ordinary people caught up in a tragedy who suddenly discover courage they didn't know they had. One example was Roger Olian, a passerby who dove into the icy water of the Potomac River in 1982 after a plane went down shortly after takeoff from Washington D.C. He jumped into the icy cold water then, assisted by several off duty military personnel, attempting to rescue a survivor. Only five out of 79 people on the plane survived. This kind of thing happens more than I can recall, to people who didn't know they had it in them.

My late uncle Eugene Austin, a marine in the South Pacific during World War II, spent a year in Veteran's Administration (VA) hospitals after the war, having won the Silver Star and multiple purple hearts. I once asked my cousin Spencer Austin, his son, why he performed the incredibly courageous act that won him the Silver Star. Spencer said, "He got really mad." That was a shocker to me, but I wonder how often such things happen because someone just lost emotional control. Perhaps nine times out of ten, someone in that frame of mind would get killed, but my uncle Gene survived. Since this has never happened to me, I don't really know.

For lack of a better term, I call the other kind of courage Social Courage. This means the courage to go against the crowd, especially when you choose principle over expediency. I think this kind of courage is very rare, though we do hear of such cases: whistleblowers who lose their jobs doing the right thing, the rare, rare, rare politician who follows his conscience despite its negative impact on his/her re-election (almost all such claims are false), and even the simple ability to tell the truth when a lie would be easier. This is the kind of courage I strive for, and often fail to acheive, because swimming upstream is so difficult. Unlike the soldier or spontaneous hero who reacts emotionally, this almost always involves a known negative cost, like the loss of a job or friends as the cost of one's courage.

My all-time favorite hero for this second kind of courage is Muhammed Ali, Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the world, when he refused to be drafted during the Viet Nam war. In 1967, Ali was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for draft evasion. He literally gave up everything -- his income, titles, security, the admiration of untold millions and the terrible scorn, even hatred of others -- all with the knowledge he would likely go to prison. I can't imagine anyone giving up so much for principle, but he did. As you probably know, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually overturned his conviction, and he didn't have to go to prison. But his title was lost, so he had to invent the Rope a Dope strategy against the awesome power of George Foreman in his historic 1974 comeback. In my estimation, not one man in a million has this kind of courage, especially when the stakes were so high and the deck was stacked against him.

I believe in courage enough to have a tattoo of the Chinese character for it on my arm, to remind me to break out of a natural human tendency - conformity. One of the scariest things I ever did was to call a girl and ask for a date when I was a 14 year-old in Junior High School (it wasn't called middle school then). I remember beginning the call several times, but hanging up before anyone answered before I finally got it done. I have managed to develop social courage in some areas since, but I hope I never have to find out whether I have the other kind, physical courage. The closest I ever came was riding a motorcycle on the race track, which was probably a combination of adrenalin and emotion. It was the most fun thing I ever did, lasting almost a decade ending in 2009.

2. TRUSTWORTHINESS

Trustworthiness is essential to be a good friend, neighbor, partner, customer or service provider. The lack of it is at the root of today's multiple worldwide financial crises. Although so many people today are indoctrinated by government schools and movies to think businessmen and women are evil and do so much harm to the environment and society, in my opinion the opposite is most often true. This requires an explanation, since it seems to be such a minority viewpoint.

If you' ve read any of my other posts, you know I have a free market bias. I believe that most of the damage business does today, especially the most egregious and destructive examples, is a direct result of government subsidies, government regulations, unfunded mandates on business and other political favoritism which I called CRONY CAPITALISM in an earlier blog post. A good example of this was a prior Congress' limiting future oil spill damages to $75 million after the Exxon-Valdez disaster in Alaska in the seventies, which was a small fraction of the actual damages in the more recent case in the Gulf of Mexico. Although one could reasonably argue that President Obama did right when he stepped in to demand more from British Petroleum (BP), this would not have been necessary without the earlier, disastrous, political action to artificially reduce oil companies' risk of lawsuits from insurance companies and other affected parties.

Without turning this into another essay... government subsidies (and limited liability legislation) encourage business' dependence on government, just like heroin, at the same time making them less responsible for damage they may cause. One reason for this is the suspension of property rights and their enforcement, like bailing out Wall Street banks with taxpayers' money. Of course government, forever naive and hopelessly stupid, assumed, but did not require, that the banks would make new loans with it. Instead, they just improved their balanced sheets. It is the height of arrogance, ignorance and denial to think that free markets caused any part of this. See also CRONY CAPITALISM, scrolling to What Free Market?

Some companies petition government to pass further restrictions on their competitors, which was the origin of the wave of antitrust legislation in the 1890's and since. This anti-market activity is a another kind of government subsidy for some businesses, and cronyism adversely affecting others. This has created one of the most counterproductive, destructive, arbitrary and capricious bodies of law any government ever imposed on its citizens. Always sold as the panacea for some problem (i.e., monopoly), it almost always makes the problem worse, creating unintended consequences no government bureaucrat or agent can predict. It is no accident, for example, that giving the Federal Reserve (a private banking cartel) a monopoly over the nation's money and credit did not solve the problem of "banking monopolies" promised at its creation in 1913. Instead, it has destroyed more than 95% the value of the dollar. See THE COURAGEOUS WISDOM OF RON PAUL.

Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws -- Mayer Amschel Rothschield

Concerning personal trustworthiness, think about which friends, family member and associates you treasure the most. Most likely, they are the ones who give you positive values in exchange for the values you give them, in a win-win relationship where both parties benefit. In the unsubsidized business world, trustworthiness is the most important aspect of contract law, developed privately by merchants in ancient times. Only when nation-states came along in recent centuries, did government take over and attempt to monopolize this innovative development.


3. HONESTY

Like any good thing, honesty can be carried too far, or applied in a situation where it does more harm than good. For example, telling someone that a friend or family member they have known and trusted all their life is a crook, or did some dispicable thing. If necessary to prevent further harm, this may be a good thing, but if only to set the record straight on a loved one's deathbed, it may further no purpose but pain and emotional suffering. I have Dr. Laura Slessinger, the famous talk show host, to thank for this practical wisdom.

Honesty is particularly important in government, where it is found the least. Since government is a legal monopoly of force against innocents, it most effectively separates personal responsibility from individual action (See CRAIG'S SEVEN PREMISES - Numbers 4-6). This is one important reason why government has easily outstripped its protective function and instead became a bloated monster whose primary purpose today seems to be to separate people from their rights instead of protecting them. Of course, the whole idea of "rights" has been turned on its head since the New Deal, as I discuss in CONFUSION ABOUT RIGHTS.

It should be obvious that a person's proven honesty in contractual and other dealings is one of; perhaps the most important, aspect of trustworthiness. But, you don't have an obligation to tell a thief where the money is hidden.

4. COMPASSION

I include compassion here not because so many people lack it, but because so many think government produces or encourages it, which is completely false. Let me begin by defining what I mean by compassion.

Compassion is the voluntary choice to assist someone in need.

However, once government gets involved, the voluntary part goes out the window. As I explain in my blog post MARKETS WORK - GOVERNMENTS DON'T, government funding always comes from legalized theft, fraud and extortion. This includes increasing public debt and "printing" dollars (future pain) as well as more obvious and immediate taxation and expanding government spending without wealth to back it (current pain).

Furthermore, once people have come to expect the government to take care of disaster victims, feed the poor, help budding entrepreneurs start businesses and create safety nets, private charities are diminished, not only in their primary goal to help people, but in the lack of honesty inherent in political, rather than voluntary, resource allocation. As I pointed out in ADAM SMITH'S DISMAL SCIENCE, governments at all levels turned away truckloads of food, water, clothing and other useful items after Hurricane Katrina that were sent by churches, private charities, businesses and spontaneous groups of Americans, the most compassionate people on Earth.

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of government pretending (always failing) to achieve compassion is forcing people to give to causes they do not support. This diminishes the genuine compassion so many people exhibit during natural and other disasters. It is no accident that Americans have been the most compassionate people on Earth, originating so many international organizations designed to do one thing -- to help people in need. This compassion came not from government, which inhibits it, but from ordinary people left mostly free to pursue their own lives instead of being told what to do with them from cradle to grave. The decline in American compassion over the last half century is a direct result of government involvement.

CONCLUSION

I wish I could say I always uphold these characteristics, but I too often lack the courage to do so. For me, courage is most important because it makes the others easier to find. As one of my favorite philosophers, Epictetus, (Roman Slave and leader of the Stoic movement) said, do not worry about things over which you have no control. The past cannot be undone, and as another mentor of mine said, "Perfect is the enemy of good enough."

SCIENCE = INDUCTION + DEDUCTION

by James Craig Green
Edited 12/10/2012 and 8/21/2014

Science is not fact.

Science is not truth.

Science is not absolute.

Science can never be "settled."

SCIENCE is the creation of theories attempting to explain observations. According to philosopher of science KARL POPPER, any theory that cannot be falsified (proven wrong) by experimentation is not science. This important perspective illustrates why scientific theories and laws may have to be changed from time to time.

Science depends on INDUCTION  to create theories, and DEDUCTION to apply them. Each is dependent on the other, since deductions from applying existing theories may produce contradictions from future observations, dictating the revision of those theories. A scientific LAW is nothing more than a theory which has withstood many experiments that have corroborated it (failed to disprove it) over a period of time. This does NOT mean the theory has been "proven" for all time.

INDUCTION is extrapolation from the specific (observations, measurements and experiments) to the general (hypotheses, theories and laws). For example, Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation ("law of gravity") says that every mass in the universe exerts a force on every other mass in the universe proportional to the product of their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Measurement inaccuracies applied over large distances can be significant. This is why the Apollo missions to the moon required course corrections based on radar measurements of their actual, rather than predicted, location at times. This was demonstrated in the movie Apollo 13 when Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) said after shutting down the spacecraft's guidance system, "We just put Sir Isaac Newton in the driver's seat." What he meant by that was, without the guidance system to constantly measure the error of Newton's laws (of motion and gravity), they would not know how to correct these errors until the system was turned back on.

The important thing to know about Newton's "law of gravity" is that no human has ever tested or measured this phenomenon except on earth, the moon, or by remote observations of distant celestial bodies. Since man has NEVER tested this "universal" law anywhere else, no one can be certain that it applies throughout the universe, under all possible conditions.

Once a HYPOTHESIS (educated guess) is tested by experiment without being falsified, it may be called a theory. A scientific "law" is nothing more than a theory with many successful experiments supporting it. It is important to realize that no experiment can PROVE a scientific theory, but can support or refute it.

One lesson to be learned from this is that every scientific theory (and law) is based on FAITH that it applies to conditions and places for which it has not been tested. This uncertainty - the possibility of future revision or rejection - is why scientific theories are not, and cannot be, absolute.

DEDUCTION in science is the application of a general theory to a specific case. For example, starting with Newton's law of gravity, one can calculate the gravitational force between the earth and moon, if one knows the mass of each and the distance between them. Once these input parameters are known, there is only one answer, within a chosen level of accuracy (number of decimal places). All experiments are limited by the accuracy of measurement.

Now, the bottom line, and the source of disagreement between some scientists and/or philosophers:


INDUCTION (the source of all scientific theories) is creative (non-rational) because it depends on creating something new that never before existed (a made-up hypothesis, theory or law). Several competing theories/hypotheses/laws might explain the same observations. (The Earth was once visualized as resting on the back of a giant turtle). An example of INDUCTION is Newton's law of gravity.

In his early 20th century work in physics, Albert Einstein concluded that Newton's law did not take into account how gravity bends light. Although it took many years (waiting for technology and observational conditions to catch up), Einstein's claim that Newton's law was not universally valid was finally confirmed by experiment in 1919, facilitated by the observation of a total solar eclipse of the sun by the moon. No one knows what future data, experiment or new theory will partially or wholly replace today's theories, none of which are absolute or proven for all time.

This is one reason why Dr. Richard Hammling, former Los Alamos and Bell Labs scientist, summarized the following in a 1986 Presentation at a Bell Communications Seminar:

Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never know the flaws. If you doubt too much you won't get started.


DEDUCTION is rational, because it rigidly applies the rules of logic without deviation. Logic is a human word/mind game that begins with arbitrary assumptions and rules, which dictate how the game is played. Like mathematics, it has nothing to do with REALITY, though it may be used to better understand reality.

When theories or laws change from INDUCTION based on new experiments - as with Einstein's modification of Newton's Law of Gravity - the very same rigid logic of DEDUCTION now has a changed result, due to the underlying change in the Scientific theory or law. The modified version now produces a different result for the changed theory or law, which was not so absolute after all.

See NEWTON'S LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION

and  ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION OF EINSTEIN