This is what gives the Torah's code of social justice its power and durability for millennia after its institution. Obviously in order to do, they had to know what was demanded. Man, by his very nature, must constantly strive to perfect himself. When he is not ascending, he is, of necessity, descending. One is either growing or stagnating, there is no in-between.
Life is like the down escalator.
If you stand still, you go down. If you walk, you stay where you. Only if you make the additional effort to run, will you ascend. The laws of nature are universally accepted as being incontrovertible facts, but how nature operates is a cause for investigation and speculation. Science labors constantly to offer more and more sophisticated explanations of phenomena, and to reveal the secrets of nature, but no one would sensibly contradict the realities of nature based on science's lack of precise understanding of these realities.