Are the supposedly eternal and universal laws of nature nothing but Reified Rhetoric ?

Of course they are - can't you tell by the way I posed the question ?

I was using rhetoric --- we all do - particularly scientists.

I emphasize that point because so many scientists claim they do not.

This, in itself, is a highly effective bit of rhetoric.

But when you start deluding yourself thinking that if you and enough of your colleagues say something often enough it must be true (rather like Hitler and his General Staff after the Fall of France) you are in danger of reifying your rhetoric into something that is no longer an airy claim but now a solid fact.

We can't ever know if the laws of the universe are in fact eternal and universal and it needn't matter.

No matter unless you treat science as a theology - in which case you reify limited human suppositions into unlimited universal laws.....