[evanb]

Typically in physics we derive laws from principles. For example, the law of conservation of momentum is derived from the principle of translation invariance.

Nobody calls the Standard Model a law, for example. The modern view is that the Standard Model is a low-energy effective field theory.

But, whatever supplants the SM, we still expect the principle of translation invariance to hold.

Until, that is, we have evidence for a paradigm shift. If we discover physics that really can't be described, for example, by dynamics happening in a geometric space, then we'll have to give up that principle. Strongly-coupled stringy dynamics seems to have non-geometric phases, for example.

So our statement of laws is more a description of the current best paradigm (say, the operating system), rather than our best model (the program).