The central feature of many scientific and industrial processes, from sedimentation of granular materials to thin film growth by atomic beam deposition, and from biological growth to fluid flow in porous media, is understanding the evolution and the morphology of fluctuating surfaces and interfaces.  In this talk I will first point out some of the generic features of such systems as well as the parameters that can be used to characterize them.  I will then discuss some of the scaling laws that in recent years have been developed and have become powerful tools in the analysis and characterization of fluctuating surfaces and interfaces.  In particular, I will discuss some of the key theoretical, simulational and experimental advances that have been made in the field of epitaxial thin film growth through applications of  scaling ideas.