Science at Troynovant:
what we know & what we don't know,
the history, nature, prospects,
& philosophy of science:
the grand foundation of the
scientific method;
listed by Title
  

  
[The French court.]

Duke of Burgundy:

And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness,
Even so our houses and ourselves and children
Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,
The sciences that should become our country; ...

William Shakespeare
Henry V, 5.2.54-58

  
The Thomist and later derivative systems of universal law rest upon the basic assumption of ascertainable norms of conduct for every entity in the world — norms universally valid and, as operative in the individuals comprising each species, possessing objective reality. Hence, when Ockham asserted that the universal was merely a word (nomen), and that nothing was real except the individual, he dealt a blow directly at the heart of this systemization. ...

In short, nominalism begets a scientific skepticism which prohibits the knowledge and validity of law, since law cannot be applied successfully in a universe where each individual unit is considered unique. Category and abstract concept, essential for science, are dismissed as unreal.

Philosophical skepticism goes beyond nominalism, in denying the certainty of any knowledge, even that of the individual. Whereas Ockham would admit that any individual object may be known through sense percept and intuitive concept, Sextus Empiricus, denying any certain objective validity to whatever is grasped by sense and intuition, as well as by intellect, would insist upon the complete relativity of all knowledge.

These two streams, nominalism and philosophical skepticism, as well as their tributaries, swelled the broad river of the Counter-Renaissance. It is not difficult to surmise the consequence to the surrounding country, that beautifully surveyed, fenced-in and marked-off land of universal law. The cartography of Aquinas and his successors has no counterpart in reality after the inundation, and the resulting wasteland is redeemed and newly developed only with the full advent of the Scientific Reformation.

Hiram Haydn
"The Repeal of Universal Law"
The Counter-Renaissance  (1950)

  
Albert Einstein,
disenchanted with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle,
remarked:
“God does not play dice.”

Niels Bohr
replied:
“Einstein, stop telling God what to do.”