The Abandoning of Induction in Favor of Deduction and Falsification

Induction

A significant function of science, and of everyday thinking, is to make sense of available information. Induction is the process of going from the specific to the general thereby reaching a conclusion about the complex nature of the universe from a , thus far, limited set of observations. A person uses a collection of evidence, gained through experience, and uses it to form a conclusion which is conceived to be conform with the given facts. This means the observations may be true, but because of the given limitation of observation the conclusion could still be proven false. David Hume has identified this problem of induction and deems it therefore as logically unjustifiable. It is, however, the primary form of reasoning in science and is used to attain inferences which the scientific community believes to be the most likely form of the observed phenomena in question within a current paradigm. Induction has established itself as an effective method in the natural sciences and is imperative for scientific advancement.

A classic example of an inductive reasoning process is the fact that, so far, unless one is experiencing a polar night, it has been observed that the sun rises each day in the East. Therefore we can generalize that the sun always rises each day in the East. On the other side of the reasoning process is a concept known as deduction. Which uses scientific laws as a premise to form a new claim. If we take as a premise that the sun always rises each morning in the East, then scientists can safely deduce that the sun will rise tomorrow morning in the East. For a deduction to be valid, the premises have to be true in order for the conclusion to be true. In order to use induction to reach a valid conclu...

... middle of paper ...

...ould try to falsify instead of using them for progress. Therefore induction is imperative for scientific advancement. Bibliography

Anwer, Ahmed J. “Some Approaches to the Problem of Induction,” Indian Philosophical Quarterly 22 (1995): 247-258. Web

Barker, Vernon C., Richard N. Aufmann, and Joanne S. Lockwood. Essential Mathematics with Applications: Student Support Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. 283. Print.

"Early Acid Base History."Early Acid Base History. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.

"The Problem of Induction (1953, 1974)."The Problem of Induction, by Sir Karl Popper. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. .

Schaller, Chris P. "Concepts of Acids and Bases."Structure in Chemistry. College of Saint Benedict, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.