Abstract
We show that the classical Kolmogorov and Richardson scaling laws in fully developed turbulence are consistent with a random Gaussian force field. Numerical simulations of a shell model for turbulence suggest that the fluctuations in the force (acceleration) field are scale independent throughout the inertial regime. We find that Lagrangian statistics of the relative velocity in a turbulent flow is determined by the typical force field, whereas the multiscaling is associated to extreme events in the force field fluctuations.