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Author | Topic: Abductive Reasoning In Science | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
I think that "rational" would be better than "logical" in this context. The limits of pure deductive logic are well known, by the way. That's why science is an empirical enterprise.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2
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quote: But there isn't a real problem in reconciling them. Inductive and abductive modes of reasoning are fallible. That's all that declaring them "logically invalid" means.
quote: Formal deductive logic has the problem that it needs premises to reason from and can't produce them. And that's one reason why we need other modes of reasoning. Given premises, however, formal logic is useful and effective.
quote: However, validity is not a property of a proposition. It is a property of the argument that leads from the premises to the proposition. Your definition is not only non-standard, it is useless since any proposition may be derived by valid logic given a free choice of premises.
quote: The point that abductive reasoning is fallible and should be carefully employed is important, I think. Aside from that I cannot say that validity in strict deductive logic is greatly important in any argument, unless it is presented as an argument of strict deductive logic.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
So would you agree that a theory is believed on inductive or abductive grounds ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Firstky, let us be clear that a theory is not something that can be falsified as easily as a hypothesis. What you have described works well for testing a hypothesis but would generally cause a theory to be revised rather than discarded.
quote: Here, you have run headfirst into the problem of induction. Testing a hypothesis under new conditions is certainly useful but not for your "deduction" (which is not valid). Indeed it would seem to be an abduction i.e. success in the test is better explained by the hypothesis applying, rather than chance, or some more convoluted explanation. In fact you seem to be assuming that the problem of induction is simply our practical inability to test all possible conditions. This is not so. We cannot deductively determine that our hypothesis works under any particular set of conditions merely by testing it. Falsification is deductive, confirmation under such tests is always inductive.
quote: Presumably given the results of testing under a sufficiently large number of variations -including all suspected of being relevant. But for theories there is more than this. The theory of evolution offered a framework to understand the hierarchy of taxonomic classification, biogeographic distribution and the fossil record. This presented a strong abductive ground to accept the theory on the grounds of explanatory power.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Then you are only seeing the half of it. The failure to falsify does not deductively justify any use of the theory as a model at all. Even under the tested circumstances. For that you need other reasoning.
quote: But that is what I understood you to be saying - and that conclusion can only be justified inductively or abductively. My point stands.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: As I said falsification is deductive. I don't see anything significant in what you are saying here.
quote: You're still missing it. The idea that it applies within the tested data is not deductively true. You need induction or abduction to even conclude that. Indeed, the conclusion that you achieved the expected result in the test because the theory worked is an abductively conclusion.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Only if the "analysis of the data" is restricted to determining if the theory has been falsified or not. But that is not enough for "acceptance of the theory" even tentatively "as a working model". For that you need to apply induction or abduction as I keep telling you.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2
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The thing striking me in the face is the obvious fact that your description of philosophers better fits yourself than anyone else.
To raise one simple example the question of which reasoning modes are employed in science is best decided by looking at actual scientific reasoning rather than by abstract reasoning. (Even good abstract reasoning). Please bow out of this thread. I don't want to see another train wreck like your attempt to "prove" that scientists can't use induction.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Even if that was correct he'd only be right by accident, having no valid argument or understanding of the reasoning used by scientists. However in my view the whole idea of a hypothesis being corroborated by repeated failures to falsify it is an example of inductive reasoning, and any claim that science doesn't use induction at all would certainly need to provide an alternative explanation of the reasoning used in that case.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
However if we compare the actual painting to genuine works by elephants (who also seem to need training and human guidance) or by apes we can see that it is extremely unlikely that it was produced by either. The simple hypothesis might be falsified but a closer look shows us no real alternative to a human source for this particular painting.
So, RAZD, do you accept that this painting was created by a human being or not ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2
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Of course there's nothing important in the context of this discussion to ignore. Even without a formal survey we still have a strong abductive argument for assigning the painting to a human creator - which goes to show that abduction is rather more than a mere guess. Now THAT is an important point.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Actually, evolution itself doesn't claim this. But it is (more or less) what we infer from the evidence. (There are some significant complications at the very root of the tree, but I don't think that they are important now).
quote: Evidence that something HAS happened is evidence that it could.
quote: Well, we'll go with that for now, but the outcome of the rules are not always predictable even in quite simple physical systems (see Chaos theory).
quote: So the tree structures we observe in taxonomy and genetics would qualify, correct ? And we can predict that any new lifeform discovered will fit into those trees correct ? And they do. So there you are.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Of course we are not talking about just A plant. We are talking about ALL earthly life. We may not have the genetic data for every known species, but we do have the data used for taxonomy. So the fallacy is yours, as shown by your dismissal of evidence you can't even understand.
quote: Of course the fallacy is yours. You claimed that there was no evidence that it could happen. My point is that we have evidence that it did happen - which is evidence that it could happen. And it is certainly not fallacious to say that evidence that something did happen is evidence that it happened. Indeed to claim otherwise - as you do - is to reject all logic.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: I've already told you what that evidence is. For instance we might point out the eukaryotic cell - ALL animals and ALL plants have this form of cell. There are single celled eukaryotes, too. Or another, aside from minor variations, the genetic code is the same in ALL DNA-based life. And there is more, much more uniting all life. Taxonomy and genetics speak to the truth of common ancestry of all life.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2
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quote: Except, of course I told you that these were examples of the EVIDENCE not proof in themselves. So your "fallacy" is simply your own invention. Now are you going to discuss the matter honestly ? Or are you going to simply go on with your refusal to even understand the evidence and the arguments ? Because I have better things to do than with my time trying to spoon feed you arguments and facts that you can't be bothered to listen to.
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