The principle that science, like proteins, can take on many different forms—folding and refolding into diverse structures depending on context, while maintaining its essential nature. Just as a single protein can have multiple conformations that determine its function, science conforms to different shapes across disciplines, cultures, and historical periods. Physics and sociology are both science, but they're folded differently—different methods, different standards, different forms of evidence. The Law of Scientific Conformations recognizes that this diversity is not weakness but strength: science's ability to conform to different domains is what makes it universally applicable. It doesn't look the same everywhere because it can't; it adapts to what it studies.
Example: "He couldn't understand why psychology didn't look like physics—where were the elegant equations, the precise predictions? The Law of Scientific Conformations explained: psychology is science folded differently, adapted to the complexity of its subject. It's not less science; it's science in a different conformation. Both are valid; both are necessary; both are science."
by Dumu The Void February 19, 2026
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