The answer is “yes,” although it is different from physics and
chemistry, and historically there has been considerable confusion
surrounding this issue. In 1948 Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim
formulated what they called the “deductive nomological model” of
scientific explanation (Hempel & Oppenheim, 1948). A deductive
nomological model is one in which a single event is subsumed under a
general law. It is fully accounted for by applying the general law to a
set of initial premises or conditions, which then logically result in
an observed phenomenon. The premises must be empirically true, the
conclusion logically derivable from the premises, and the general law
must be a necessary component of the explanation. Physics is the
paradigm case of a science where laws of nature can be devised and
applied deterministically. Thus (simplifying), Newton apocryphally saw
an apple starting to fall from a tree (the initial conditions); it
descended to the ground, in some versions of the story, hitting him on
the head (the observation); whereupon he devised the inverse square law
(the general law) (Newton, 1687/1999). The general law is necessary to
explain what happened to the apple, and the future resting place of the
apple (on the ground) is logically derivable from the general law as
applied to the initial conditions (the apple falling off the tree).
Newtonian mechanics proved useful not only in clarifying what happens
when subsequent apples altered their position in space and time, but
also in devising hypotheses to predict specific instances where the same
general law applies, for example, the trajectory of cannonballs or
launching rockets to the moon. These hypotheses can be tested
experimentally.
