Does nature obey laws?

The conviction that the natural world is obedient, adhering to
laws, is a widespread assumption of modern science. But where did
this idea originate and what beliefs does it imply? In this
episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and
Mark Vernon discuss the impact on science of the Elizabethan
lawyer, Francis Bacon. His New Instrument of Thought, or Novum
Organum, put laws at the centre of science and was intended as an
upgrade on assumptions developed by Aristotle. But does the
existence of mind-like laws of nature, somehow acting on
otherwise mindless matter, even make sense? What difference is
made by insights subsequent to Baconian philosophy, such as the
discovery of evolution or the sense that the natural world is not
machine-like but behaves like an organism? Could the laws of
nature be more like habits? And what about the existence of
miracles, the purposes of organisms, and the extraordinary
fecundity of creativity?