Some basics: Theory and Law

What you've presented is a very idealised view of how things work.In practice many of the "laws" we have were never really theories, except possibly in the mind of the originator, before they were published. Newton made his observations, thought about them a bit, and published his work including assorted "laws" of motion. Many modern theories (such as General Relativity) are actually more sound than what we call laws (such as Newtons Law of Gravitation - which is superceded by the theory of General Relativity).Scientists are much more careful about using the word "law" these days. It has hints of finality that science has long since found to be untenable ... there have been too many instances of what were thought to be final answers to questions that have proved to be very much less than final.

I think that's largely right. Certainly for things like Newtons laws of motion. Though some laws, such as some formulations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics are more of the attempt to explain those observations that is closer to theory - heat can never of itself flow from a cold state to a hotter one is an observation, a change in a closed system can only occur if its possible for entropy to increase is more theoretical (though contra my namesake who has also posted on this forum, nonetheless true).Alan