RATIONALE FOR THE INVESTIGATIVE SCIENCE OF LAWS

The purpose of the investigative science of laws is to derive and accumulate reliable knowledge of the structure and mechanics (cause and effects) of the laws of government. The accumulation of knowledge of laws ends ignorance, satisfies curiosity, and enables engineers to design increasingly sophisticated and capable laws for the benefit of the human condition.

For the investigative scientist, every law of government is regarded as a testable hypothesis (the hypothesis being that the law will produce the physical-world outcome that is intended by the designers of the law).  The experiment to test that hypothesis is initiated when the law is enforced.  The task of the law-scientist is to measure and analyze the effects, or outcome of each law and compare its outcome (effects) to the structure and original intent of the law (cause).  The knowledge of the cause and effects of laws that is obtained by the scientist is then reported in the scientific literature.    

When the results of scientific analyses of laws become available, legislatures will be able to use quality assurance (QA) programs to improve the performance of the bodies of laws for which they are responsible.  Those laws that have been found to be less than useful to the people by the QA program will be repealed by the legislature for the same reasons that similar QA programs are now used to identify and eliminate defective or outmoded pharmaceuticals, transport aircraft, and surgical procedures, etc.   For example, if the analysis of a law discloses that it has no stated purpose or that it is detrimental to the people, the quality assurance program for laws will recommend that the legislature repeal the law. Click here to learn more about QA programs for laws. 
 
Knowledge of the performance of laws derived by the science of laws will enable law-design engineers to avoid the mistakes of the past in the design of new laws. Knowledge will also enable engineers to create sophisticated and accurate models of laws and thus predict, with increasing degrees of certainty, the outcome of proposed new laws for the benefit of the people.  

The result is an optimistic scenario for every productive field that is based upon scientific knowledge: At any given time, knowledge of the physical world is growing, problems are being solved by ever-improving means, and problems of the next higher order of complexity are in the process of being solved.

The field of lawmaking is the exception to this optimistic scenario. Lawmaking is not (yet) based upon scientific knowledge and the tools of design expertise are not applied to the creation of laws.

Legislatures enact laws with the expectation that the enforcement of those laws will produce a desired change in the natural order of things. However, laws are, with rare exceptions, presently created without the benefit of design expertise or knowledge(!) and, after a given law is enacted, no reliable feedback process is employed to determine if the law accomplished its objective. The result is that laws are mostly ineffective in the solution of societal problems and legislatures are ignorant of the effects of their laws.

The lack of knowledge of the outcome of laws is a serious problem because laws are as capable of producing harm as they are of producing benefits. In fact some well-intended laws may actually be doing significant harm to people in terms of their human rights, living standards, or quality of life, but no one has comprehensive and reliable knowledge of those consequences.

It is a matter of historical record that the worst human calamities, of wars, gross abuses of human rights, and the financial collapse of nations have occurred under the authority and direction of the laws of government. Therefore the continued state of ignorance of the cause and effect mechanisms of laws is irresponsible and can no longer be regarded as tolerable, particularly in view of continuing technological advances that can magnify the harm that may be inflicted upon people by laws, either deliberately or inadvertently.

Fortunately, the tools of science are available for ending the current unacceptable state of ignorance of laws. Laws are human-made products that operate within, and have a profound effect upon the physical world (the domain of science), and they are eminently suited to evaluation by the newly constituted investigative science of laws.  In other words, the opportunity now exists for a significant improvement of the human condition through the expansion of science to encompass laws and lawmaking! 

It should be noted that the investigative science of laws is not a study of human emotional or mental processes (psychology) or a study of human social interactions (sociology); these natural sciences already exist. The science of laws, rather, is an engineering science, a study of human-made devices, or tools (laws are tools) that are created by humans for the benefit of humans.

Click here to learn more about the Mechanics of Laws.