15. Law of Organic expediency (Aristotle's law)

Aristotle takes recourse to the law of identity—though he does not identify it as such—in an attempt to negatively demonstrate the law of non-contradiction. However, in doing so, he shows that the law of non-contradiction is not the more fundamental of the two:

"First then this at least is obviously true, that the word 'be' or 'not be' has a definite meaning, so that not everything will be 'so and not so'. Again, if 'man' has one meaning, let this be 'two-footed animal'; by having one meaning I understand this:-if 'man' means 'X', then if A is a man 'X' will be what 'being a man' means for him. It makes no difference even if one were to say a word has several meanings, if only they are limited in number; for to each definition there might be assigned a different word. For instance, we might say that 'man' has not one meaning but several, one of which would have one definition, viz. 'two-footed animal', while there might be also several other definitions if only they were limited in number; for a peculiar name might be assigned to each of the definitions. If, however, they were not limited but one were to say that the word has an infinite number of meanings, obviously reasoning would be impossible; for not to have one meaning is to have no meaning, and if words have no meaning our reasoning with one another, and indeed with ourselves, has been annihilated; for it is impossible to think of anything if we do not think of one thing; but if this is possible, one name might be assigned to this thing."

16. Dollo's law of irreversibility

Dollo’s law, biological principle, formulated about 1890 by Louis Dollo, a French-born Belgian paleontologist, that evolution is not reversible; i.e., structures or functions discarded during the course of evolution do not reappear in a given line of organisms.

Dollo’s law has since been refuted by evidence that evolutionary specialization can be undone. For instance, reversible evolution has been observed on a relatively short evolutionary timescale in the peppered moth (Biston betularia). In the 19th century a dark morph of the moth emerged in response to air pollution during the Industrial Revolution and became the dominant colour morph, almost completely replacing the light-coloured form. By the late 20th century, however, the light morph was on the rise again, its increase coincident with the decline of air pollution in England.

17. The First Law of Biology: The Law of Existence

all living organisms obey the laws of thermodynamics. This law is fundamental because the laws of the inanimate world determine the course of the universe. All organisms on all planets, including humans, must obey these laws. The laws of thermodynamics govern energy transformations and mass distributions. Cells that comprise living organisms (see The Second Law) are open systems that allow both mass and energy to cross their membranes. Cells exist in open systems so as to allow acquisition of minerals, nutrients, and novel genetic traits while extruding end products of metabolism and toxic substances. Genetic variation, which results in part from gene transfer in prokaryotes and sexual reproduction in higher organisms, allows tremendously increased phenotypic variability in a population as well as an accelerated rate of evolutionary divergence.