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THE SOLUTION: SCIENCE OF LAWS

Science is the principal agent of improvement of the human condition. Significant gains in medical care, transportation, information technology, and agriculture, for example, have all been made possible through the derivation and prudent application of scientific knowledge. The trend of science, of ever-increasing knowledge of the physical universe and of advancing technologies has produced an ongoing optimistic scenario: At any given time, knowledge of the physical universe 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.

Science has two principal divisions: Investigative Science and Creative Science. Investigative science is the "exploration and discovery" branch of science that is concerned with the derivation and accumulation of scientific knowledge of the physical universe. Creative science, or engineering, is the branch of science that applies knowledge and design expertise to solve problems through the creation of useful products, i.e., of tools, or technology.

The Science of Laws

The laws of government are the means, or tools of government that are intended to solve societal problems. And the creation of laws has traditionally been performed by legislative assemblies (legislatures, parliaments) that use rhetoric and dialectic (speechmaking, debate, deliberation) to craft new laws of government. This traditional method of lawmaking has remained virtually unchanged since antiquity; it was unaffected, for example, by the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. However, as discussed in another section (see the traditional method of lawmaking), traditional lawmaking has serious defects and omissions that render it incapable of serving the problem-solving needs of democratic governments, and a new and better approach to the study and design of laws is needed. That new approach is the emerging science of laws.

Laws of government operate within, and have a profound impact upon the physical universe, which is the domain of science. It is therefore appropriate that science should be expanded to encompass laws and lawmaking. The value of the science of laws will be identical to that of every other science – it will increase humankind’s store of reliable knowledge and will increase scholarship, expertise, ethics, and quality in the creation of laws that enable governments to satisfy the purpose of democracy. The science of laws has two co-equal branches: The Investigative Science of Laws and The Creative Science of Laws.