Each confirming instance only increases my confidence in my idea. But no amount of success can prove me right. If I get many results of the same kind over time and space, I might generalise to a conclusion. If it doesn’t match, then I must reject it, or refine or redesign the theory to make it more analogous. If inputs to my particular theory produce outputs that match those of the real world, I consider it a good analogy, and therefore a good theory. Most of our theories or models are inductive analogies with the world, or parts of it. Flickr/Badlands National Park Science and uncertainty Saber tooth cat skull: just look at the fangs. Using induction and inferring to the best possible explanation consistent with the evidence, science teaches us more about the world than we could simply deduce. Reasoning by analogy, I conclude that the animal was also a carnivore. I look for animals alive today that have sharp teeth and notice they are carnivores. We also generalise to define aspects of human behaviour, including psychological tendencies and economic trends.Īnalogies make claims of similarities between two things, and extend this to make new knowledge.įor example, if I find a fossilised skull of an extinct animal that has sharp teeth, I might wonder what it ate. Generalisations also create classes of things, such as “mammals” or “electrons”. Generalisations include observing regularities in nature and imagining they are everywhere uniform – this is, in part, how we create the so-called laws of nature. We induce using generalisations and analogies.
Inductive reasoning goes beyond the information contained in what we already know and can extend our knowledge into new areas. Deduction is also the reasoning we use in mathematics. That answer was embedded in the problem, you just had to untangle it from what you already knew. For example, if I tell you that Will is between the ages of Cate and Abby, and that Abby is older than Cate, you can deduce that Will must be older than Cate.
0 kommentar(er)
