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Author | Topic: Induction and Science | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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My argument is still that inductive arguments are deductive arguments with missing premises. It is true that you can make any inductive argument deductive by the use of arbitrary premises. This ultimately boils down to something stupid like: Premise 1: All known swans are whitePremise 2: Inductive logic leads to true conclusions. Conclusion: All swans are white But this doesn't undermine the argument that inductive logic is used in science. It just reasserts that deductive logic doesn't lead to conclusions that aren't contained in the premises that were chosen by the logician in question. Furthermore - if we agree that 'all inductive reasoning is deduction with unstated premises' then that still doesn't undermine the claim 'science uses inductive reasoning'. It means that it is equivalent to say that 'science uses deductive reasoning with unstated premises', not that the claim 'science does not use inductive reasoning' is true.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I am not really arguing on the scientific induction debate. Might I suggest that your argument is therefore off topic?
Combine this with the fact that this is a Science threadmeaning that we work off the axiom that empirical things are true, and all conclusions must be empirically falsifiableand the number and type of axioms we can utilize w/out contradiction becomes significantly limited. So, I see no problem explaining Science in completely deductive terms. If something is falsifiable it means an example could arise that contradicts the conclusion. In a valid deductive argument this means we'd have to show a premise to be false: Premise 1: All swans are white.Premise 2: X is a swan Conclusion: X is white If Premise 1 is falsifiable, it means that it is a statement that was made with incomplete information (basically by definition: it means some information could come to light that contradicts the premise). Premise 2 is a definition, so is not falsifiable. If Premise 1 is classed as a definition then by definition a black swan is not a swan and the argument is unfalsifiable. So there needs to be 'room' for wrongness, which implies a general statement was made from incomplete information that turns out to be false when further information is acquired.
A1: Anything yellow is square P1: The Sun is yellow C: The Sun is square A1 isn't an axiom, it's a premise (assuming you are labeling A as an axiom) Your axioms here would be part of your definition of deductive reasoning, inescapable truths if you want to be saying anything at all using deduction, which you rightly don't state because it's a pain in the arse to state them all the time. Anyway, your Premise A1 would be something derived inductively by human beings observing yellow things and seeing that they are all square and deciding this was a general principle. It would be falsified by a single example of something yellow that is not a square.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
If you mean 'incomplete information' in the sense that there are facts that exist which have not been considered/observed, then indeed, this is the only way to falsify this statement. But there is nothing about turning an inductive argument into a deductive one that says (a) your assumptions must not contradict unknown facts, (b) your conclusion must end up being true. But the axioms of deductive logic state that if the premises are true, the conclusion is necessarily true, as long as the deductive rules of inference are followed. The point was simply to point out that induction exists in the midst of your deductive arguments in the guise of premises if you have falsifiable deductive arguments. So even if you describe science in deductive mode - you still have induction as well. If you remove all induction completely, then you are not saying anything about the world whatsoever, and since science is about the world - you've ceased doing science and you are just doing logic.
Are you saying this of an argument or a premise? If of the premise, see above; if of the argument, see below: The premise needs to be falsified since the conclusion is necessarily true if the premise is (if it is valid deduction). In scientific deduction, the premises are inferred by inductive inference.
P1: The Sun is pink C1: The Sun is not yellow An observation could be blatantly wrong. Thus, there is no need for 'general statements made from incomplete information' in order to provide the 'room' in an argument for 'wrongness'. Yes, this is logic, but it isn't science. Unless you have based your premise that the sun is pink empirically (which may well be true ). If you have done then the inducted form is P1: The Sun was yellow the last 10,000 times I looked at itP2: The Sun has never been NOTyellow C1: The Sun is always coloured yellow. Which forms the premise, P1A P1A: The sun is yellowC1A: The sun is not green This then tells us something real about the actual world - which may be false. Right now it is night time, maybe by the time the sun rises next here it will have turned green. Maybe it is green right now. That makes it falsifiable and that's because of the induction behind the premise P1A.
No, it would not be. The fact that I stated the axiom despite being unable to think of anything square and yellow at all is proof that I can state this axiom without it having any inductive basis whatsoever. Then it wasn't anything to do with science. And the topic here is induction in science. If you've found resistance to your notions, you might well find it is because people think you are on topic when you aren't.
Your, and Straggler's, insistence that you can divine the source of premises and axioms is just malarkey. If I state it as an axiom, it is an axiom; But we're not making up rules of logic here, we're not creating a formal system. We're talking about an already existing one with already existing axioms. If you want to talk about your own logical system in which 'square things are yellow' is a necessary fundamental truth, you should start a thread on that. In your system of logic, the sun is square - since it is axiomatic that yellow things are 'square'. It doesn't mean anything because we have defined what 'yellow' or 'square' is other than if a thing has property 'yellow' it has property 'is square'.
But even if it were a premise 'inductively' derived, its 'inductive' derivation could easily be shown to be deduction with missing premises. I thought you admitted to it already upthread.. You made an error of logic I'm afraid. I said that one can create premises to make an inductive form argument a deductive one. I also pointed out that even if we accept your argument as true, it doesn't remove induction from science it just gives us another way of saying 'induction'. That doesn't mean that an inductive argument is a deduction with 'missing' premises. An inductive argument is one in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. Sure - you can create premises out of thin air that necessarily lead to the conclusion (indeed - in some systems this is an axiom) in a deductive fashion - but then you've changed the argument. That's like saying all red cars are blue cars which I haven't sprayed blue. Sure, I can make any red car blue with enough blue paint, but it's kind of a stupid thing to go around saying, right? Of course we can change an argument, of course we can change the colour of cars, of course we can turn a poem into prose or prose into poetry. We could even make the argument that all invalid deductive arguments are valid deductive arguments with unstated premises that render them valid. So yes all X is Y after we change the things about X which differentiate it from Y. Since we're talking science - and not pure logic - we have to engage in induction at some point. You cannot deduce anything general about the empirical realm without some inductive logic, since we unavoidably can only work from specific experiences in empiricism Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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Not true. There is nothing about an observation that prevents it from serving as a premise in a deductive argument. If these observations are about the world, then we can indeed say much about the world with deduction only. For example?
Certainly you do not mean that anything axiomatically asserted cannot be scientifically functional... do you? No, I would have said that if that is what I meant. I said your axiom was not an axiom used in scientific reasoning.
You've lost me. Are you only fussing over my wording? No. I was pointing out that I was not saying what you thought I was saying.
An inductive argument is one in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. Why live in such a world? We haven't a choice, it seems.
If only we admit to a degree of error/uncertainty in our conclusion that is related to the probability of our premises to support it, we no longer need this 'does not necessarily follow' crap and can get on being honest with ourselves. Yes, but then that would be inductive since the premises only support the conclusion with a certain degree of confidence (ie., there is some uncertainty).
P: Three Crowes wear black shoes. C: If all Crowes wear the same color shoes, all Crowes wear black shoes. A deductive conclusion cannot begin 'if'. The correct argument is P1: Three Crowes wear black shoesP2: All Crowes wear the same colour shoes C: All Crowes wear black shoes. The reason we don't do this in science is because there is no evidence to support the empirical claim of P2. And if there were, unless it was complete evidence an inductive leap would need to be made. If Complete evidence were available no logic needed, the conclusion is observed to be true.
The argument's changed; the reasoning's stayed the same. We've gone from inductive reasoning to deductive reasoning. The reasoning has changed.
Below the surface of the inductive argument, the reasonings must be deductive; if not, then we're left with invalid, silly, voodoo logic. I'm afraid we're stuck with invalid, silly, voodoo logic. As Hume said
quote: You cannot deduce anything general about the empirical realm without some inductive logic ... Then perhaps we should stop trying to do that! Stop deducing anything general about the empirical realm making use of inductive reasoning? Then we wouldn't be doing science, we'd be just be measuring things. Edited by Modulous, : clairified closing sentences.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Modulous is a human. OK - and what are you going to do with that premise that can say much about the world?
Representative of a deductive reasoning with premises that have been removed; or Representative of invalid, silly, voodoo logic reasoning. It's the invalid silly voodoo logic. Philosophers have wrestled with it, decided it is 'technically' invalid logic, but that it's here to stay.
Just because the conclusion itself is weak/conditional does not mean that the premises cannot support that conclusion 100% Exactly. The premises must support the conclusion 100% in deduction. Since the conclusion is not supported 100% it is not a deductive argument.
There is no uncertainty in the conclusion; the conclusion is a conditional Conclusions are conditional on the the premises, not conditional statements themselves. A conditional statement 'if x then y' is itself a deductive argument or part of one, not a deductively derived conclusion. If Premise 1 is true and If Premise 2 is true then conclusion is true. That's deductive logic. If your conclusion has some conditional in it, this means a premise has been merged into the conclusion - which is misleading.
Granted, our conclusion isn't very strong, nor does it assert much about the actual world; but this is unavoidable given our poor premise and the fact that we are attempting to avoid the use of invalid, silly, voodoo logic. Best part, though, it's honest! Inductive logic can be perfectly honest. The conclusion is preceded with {Premises}Therefore, with degree of support {p} {Conclusion} A deductive conclusion cannot begin 'if' Blatantly false. All deductive arguments can be rewritten as an endless string of conditionals, this does not change their essential form
What you said is fine, but it doesn't mean what I said was blatantly false.
A1: All humans are mortal P1: Modulous is a human C: Modulous is mortal becomes... C: If all humans are mortal, then if Modulous is a human, Modulous is mortal. (A(PC)) But your conclusion isn't a conclusion it is an argument.
You are being picky about the wording, but it is not about wording; it is about form, and the two arguments above are effectively identical in form. All that has changed is the strength of our conclusion to assert things; but this is not, of course, a problem of form. There is no change in the strength of the conclusion, they are exactly equivalent and the conclusion in each case necessarily follows from the premises - even if you choose to name your conclusions and premises 'apples' and 'bananas'. {AbE -By adding conditionals explicitly in your wording - you aren't adding uncertainty, just redundancy. We can in fact appeal to a real axiom for this: quote: Conditionals are already built into the evaluation of a deductive argument, so writing them out is redundant and doesn't make the conclusion less certain than it already was.} Bullshit. We can change our argument without changing our reasoning By inserting premises in - we've changed it from inductive reasoning to deductive reasoning. By definition, this is a change in reasoning.
Good for Hume. But his reasoning really is invalid, silly, voodoo logic. Yep.
it may be perfectly fine to rely on such reasoning for feeding ourselves Unless you would assert that the statement, "Bread nourishes humans", is an unscientific conclusion - you must also accept that it is fine for science too.
And while it may be perfectly fine to rely on such reasoning for feeding ourselves (I'd say it is), should we really be doing Science with it? Whether we 'should' or not is hardly the point. We do. And what's more if you don't do it, you aren't doing science - you're just doing logic.
Isn't that the point of this thread? Whether this invalid, silly, voodoo logic is suitable for Science? No, it is whether it is intrinsically part of science. Which it is.
Not at all! Let me know when you can say something about the world 'now' with just 'observations' from then and deductions.
Humans understand things by relating them in terms they can comprehend. Even if the information in the conclusion is already in the premises (which I agree it must be), its restatement and/or summary into humanly-comprehensible terms is what is important. We don't do all this for the birds or the fishwe do Science for us; that we may comprehend; that we may understand.
If science is just re-ordering observations then, as I said, it is just about measuring things. This does not counter my assertion that it would just be measuring things. For all your championing deductive reasoning, and despite Hume's challenge, you've failed to provide the deductive reasoning that could lead to any scientific claim about the real world. Unless you move on and say 'these observations lead us tentatively to the conclusion that in general...with degree of support p' you aren't doing anything resembling science. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
If you'd rather not go down the rabbit hole of the previous post allow me to issue a challenge:
Take any number observations you like as your premises.Use only those axioms used regularly in the scientific method. Make a scientific prediction using deduction. You cannot make stuff up - all premises must be empirically true or tautologous. So, if your premise is All humans are mortal You would be asserting that you have observed the mortality of all humans.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Again, as I've said before. The importance in Science is not just in observing new things, but in taking the information gained in those observations and arranging it in ways that make it understandable Actually no - that's just empirical book keeping. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction is not something that Newton observed.
It exists; is it Science? No - but it exists within science.
But that's not what I said. I said that the premise supports the conclusion 100%. This is all that is necessary in a valid deduction. In the case of the deduction on Crowes' footwear, the premise does just that. Then you are now saying this is not an uncertain deduction? Then we agree. You had previously been talking about something else:
quote: Probability of premises to support the conclusion is not 100%, it is not deduction. It is precisely inductive logic in which the premises support, rather than necessitate 100%, the conclusion, with a potentially calculable degree of certainty.
I fail to see how this is drastically different than the 'if... then' conditional conclusion I presented for the Crowes and their shoes. Deductive arguments say
quote: Inductive arguments say
quote: If your Crowe argument is the latter - it is inductive not deductive. Where's the induction?
quote: All Crowes? If this is possibly false then it must be inductively derived. The correct deduction should be:
quote: Takes the teeth out of it right?
Malarkey! If it's good enough for a premise, it's good enough for a conclusionthere is, afterall, no difference between the two other than our own arbitrary stopping-point on the logic wheel. As I said - you can call premises 'bananas' and conclusions 'oranges' and wear a tutu if you like. It can be deceptive to confuse your current argument's premises and conclusions - leading to inadvertent logical fallacies. I was just pointing it out, not saying it altered the deduction.
This is all dependent on your claim that a conditional cannot serve as a conclusion, which it can. No, it is not. That was just a comment on form, to avoid potential confusion. The strength of the conclusion is part of the definition of a deductive argument: The necessity of the conclusion from the premises. As I said, adding 'if' is just redundant and does not 'weaken' the argument or its conclusion and does not add 'uncertainty' where there was once 'certainty'.
Oh, but it is not. It is used by scientists, but that does not make it part of Science. I have no idea what Science is. I'm talking about the thing that scientists do, that makes them scientists...the science part. And that uses induction.
And what's more if you don't do it, you aren't doing science - you're just doing logic. A claim for which you've yet to provide any support. I have supported it. It's fairly straight forward. Without induction all you have are a bunch of observations which you can play about with. You can saying nothing new about the world above and beyond those observations. You are just performing deductive logical exercises on a data set. Science takes data and infers knowledge from it using induction. Science doesn't stop at "Gravity has attracted masses that we've observed according to this relationship..."
Let me know when you can say something about the world 'now' with just 'observations' from then and deductions. I am not sure what you are asking from me here. Could you explain, please? Sure. You have a bunch of observations recorded down. Now deduce something scientific. There's lots of science in the real world. Pick something you like, Show me the money.
Science actually does both: measures, reorders. This is its essence. Not disputing that scientists rearrange their measures. But doing just that would not cover the pursuit of science, would it? Science makes predictions, develops general theories etc.
Ahh, but I have. In several instances. (Message 388; if you want it more specific, I can do that for you.) I see no deductive reasoning, sorry. So yeah, specifics would be good. This:
quote: Is induction, see: "assumed everything worked like the things he saw" - that's an induction.
And again, what is the difference between this and the deduction of conditional conclusions? All conclusions are conditional on the premises that lead to them. In a deductive argument there is no uncertainty in this. The conclusion must be necessarily true because of the premises. This is different to the inductive argument where, if true, the premises only support the conclusion to a certain degree. This is essential in science because in science we have general laws and theories supported by non-general (ie., specific) observations. In science we cannot use the deductionP1: All humans are mortal {we have not observed all humans} P2: Mod is human C: Mod is mortal. In science we'd be more in the position of having to sayP1: Every human that we have observed has died within 200 years C1: This supports, tentatively the conclusion that all humans are mortal. P2: We have observed Mod was a human P3: We have observed that humans remain human until they die. C2: (P3) gives support to the notion that all humans remain human until they die C3: {C1}, {P2} and C2 support the conclusion, with a certain level of confidence that is not 100% "Mod is mortal." I have not made any claims that the certainty is affected one way or the other. Given the premise(s), the certainty of the conclusion is equal in both of these: Yet you said:
quote: So which is it: Do we have uncertainty or not? I argue that in the quote above, you are arguing for induction which is defined as having a certain degree of error related to the probability of our premises to support it. Only if the support is 100% (ie necessary) is it deductive. You asked why live in a world where premises do not necessitate the conclusion. In scientific deduction our premises have to be empirical claims. In order to make any general claim from specific empirical claims - induction has to come into it. There is no way to deduce from "Some pendulums act with the rule 'an action has an equal and opposite reaction'" to "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" without making up stupid 'patch' premises that are not supported by evidence. You either be upfront about your voodoo induction, or you add voodoo premises. Either way, we're doing voodoo. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
But it's not my premise; it's my axiom. It is something I am taking for granted without making any claims as to its actual truth. It is not an axiom, it is a premise. It is a proposition you are using to support a conclusion, it is a premise. It is not being assumed true to see where it leads, it is not self-evident and it is not a universally accepted rule.
So, again, I fear our debate is merely semantic Your argument certainly seems to be. But you seem to think you can say something about the world using deductive logic and observations. Here is what you came up with
quote: I have to stop you right here. You have not observed that all humans are mortal. You can only use premises (and it is a premise even if you call it a banana (or a conclusion)) that you have observed or deduced from the given axioms. So, here is what we actually have so far P1: Mod is humanP2: Some humans are mortal C: Mod might be mortal. We've hardly made a scientific prediction here have we? We predict that Mod might die? Great. Way to be unfalsifiable. If we play your game and say that your conclusion is
quote: Then the only prediction we can make with this is again Mod might die. Try again, if you please. I will use inductive reasoning to make something closer to a scientific looking conclusion to show you how its done. P1: Every human that we have observed has died within 200 years of livingC1: This supports, tentatively the conclusion that all humans are mortal. P2: We have observed Mod was a human P3: We have observed that humans remain human until they die. C2: (P3) gives support to the notion that all humans remain human until they die C3: {C1}, {P2} and C2 support the conclusion, with a certain level of confidence that is not 100% "Mod is mortal." Prediction: Mod will die within 200 years.Falsification: Mod survives to 201 years old. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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Hi Jon.
Let's simplify. In science we require evidence to support our conclusions. Our conclusions are general, our evidence specific. A general conclusion that is only supported to some degree by the premises (in science this is our observed evidence, we don't get to make shit up like 'all humans are mortal'). Your 'conditional conclusions' are just ways of sneaking in the inductions. If there is no sneaky inductions, then your conditional conclusions are just set theory mathematics, not science which is about the real world not a hypothetical world were we have complete knowledge. In a deductive argument if the premises are true, the conclusion is necessarily true. This does not happen in science. We can never say a general conclusion is necessarily true unless we're just talking about maths or logic. There is always tentativity, there is always the possibility of an observation overturning our general laws. We're talking about real science, that makes real general laws, theories and conclusions about the real world based on a subset of evidential support. This is inductive. You might say that this is logically invalid - and we would all agree. But, as you say, it works and science is nothing if not pragmatic. You have failed to use deductions and observations to generate predictions, create general laws etc. Rather than argue incessantly over your unusual logical terminology - I take this failure as tentative support for my thesis that induction exists within science.
P1: The Sun rose today . . . Pn: The Sun rose on day n (long time ago) C: If the Sun behaves the same on every day, the Sun will rise tomorrow For instance: Your conclusion could be worded as "If an inductive logic leads to a true condition here then it is necessarily also true that the sun will rise tomorrow". You've worded the argument so that this conclusion is necessarily true - but you've simply snuck the induction in under the table. You can try adding the word 'if' and bunging the proposition into the conclusion - but it still doesnt stop it being a premise to the deductive conclusion 'the sun will rise tomorrow'. I should also point out that the correct form is P1: The Sun rose todayP2: the Sun behaves the same on every day P3: Tomorrow is a day C: the Sun will rise tomorrow You don't need lots of repetitions P1...Pn as you did unless you are trying to 'lend support' to P2, which would be induction. If this was a science paper - we'd have to say that P2 might be false, but it is supported by some evidence which gives us a certain confidence of its truth. This is science in the real world, Jon, not Platonic ideal empirical deductive rationalism or something. As nwr said:
quote: I'm talking about the actual doing of actual science - not the hypothetical ideal method of extracting absolute knowledge from an ideal data set. In real science as done by scientists not philosophers - our general conclusions can in principle be false even if all of our observations (premises) are true. You seem to think that science shouldn't make general statements from specifics and that doing this is 'sloppy'. This is nonsense. Your computer, your car, the Apollo rocket, the agriculture that provided your bread, all rely on this sloppy science. Indeed there is nothing that doesn't. You are stuck with it. Get used to it. Learn why it isn't as big a problem as you think it is. Read this - it is far from 'sloppy', even if it isn't logically valid. Ultimately, it does the job even if it cannot be proved that it should be able to the job. We're talking about the challenge of observations and saying anything about the world other than 'we made an observation'. You might observe some parent blackbirds feeding their child blackbirds. This is just an observation, it is not science. Nor is it science to rearrange this and say that some blackbird chicks are fed by some blackbird adults. It would be a scientific to say 'With some degree of support that is less than 100% - Blackbird parents care for their young" So - moving ourselves away from Platonic science and to actual science, Induction not only exists, but must be done if we're going to call it science rather than 'looking at something'. My argument trivial to prove false. Just show a single example of a predictive deductive argument that doesn't involve making stuff up. You have failed to do this. Everyone, in the history of the world since Hume first made the challenge has failed. Induction is with us as long as we don't make shit up to suit our purposes. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
You don't need lots of repetitions P1...Pn as you did unless you are trying to 'lend support' to P2, That was actually the reason they were there; as something of a replacement for your P2. A minor difference, though. So you agree it was inductive, not deductive?
This is built (deductively) on the premises of his observations and the assumption that all stuff behaved the same. That assumption is the assumption that induction works. That is: he assumed, based on a small set of 'some' would apply to 'all'.
But you are, again, dealing with two separate issues. Deduction says nothing about the actual truth of anything. It says if the premises are true, the conclusion is. The only way to make an inductive argument deductive in science, is to insert 'induction works' as a premise, as you have time and again demonstrated. It just masks the induction.
In fact, the degree of improbability of our second premise here will be equal to the degree of improbability of the inductive leap were we to remove this premise. Indeed. But if we are arguing that the second premise is supported to some degree by a set of other premises (and not deductively necessitated by them), then you are still talking about an inductive leap. Sure you can make an inductive leap, and then construct a deductive argument but we're still taking the inductive leap part of science, not the deductive arguments you can make after the leap. You can't avoid the inductive leap.
See D-Newton above. D-Newton either made up the claim that "that all stuff behaved the same" or he inductively concluded it. It's either not scientific, or it is induction in science.
The fact of the matter is that it is easier to falsify something when you are aware of all the parts that go into it; stating the inductive leap in the form of an assumption gives us that added ease. It doesn't change anything about truths or falsities; it just makes the argument more open and easier to address.
A scientific inductive argument spells out why the evidence supports the induction, mathematically calculates the degree of support the evidence gives and proposes further tests to increase the degree of support that exists for the claim.
Not at all! I think it is perfectly fine for science to do this. What I argue for is the expression of the inductive leap in such a way that lets us examine it and attempt to falsify it. And that happens, which is why we're able to falsify inductions in science. Indeed - science is so anal about doing this that it says that if you can't do it - it isn't science.
So, I cannot image why we are still arguing So if you explicitly agree that science uses induction and I will agree that you can insert inductively based premises to create a deductive argument and I think we're done.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Well, I'm not sure whether or not Science really uses induction; my argument has not really been to that matter. Then get on topic. If you want to discuss science and induction then read my previous posts and let me know what you think within the context of the topic. I don't see any merit continuing to discuss how science uses induction with somebody, have them disagree with me, and then when their disagreements are addressed, have them turn round and tell me they weren't discussing induction within science.
My original claim, though, was that all induction can be closedturned into deductionby adding certain premises. My counter claim is that in science, that induction will still be used, even if it is enclosed as a premise in a deductive argument. You've continuously demonstrated this with your examples - most notably was your D-Newton who explicitly used induction. The challenge for a falsifying counter-example remains open. I have never disagreed that you could turn an inductive argument into a deductive one by adding premises that meant the conclusion was necessary. I have continuously agreed with this. But in science, when we're talking about general laws and the like, the premises that you are going to be adding have that inductive quality to them, each time. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
You assert that is evidence of induction. ID proponents also make lots of assertions about evidence for ID. So, sure, you are right up there on a par with the ID creationists in your use of evidence. That is to say, you have not provided any. This is a getting be a really boring rhetorical ploy. It could as easily be said that you deny the evidence of induction. ID proponents also make lots of denials about the evidence for evolution. What would be evidence of induction in science? If generating a general law, and supporting it with particular evidence is not sufficient - what would this evidence look like so that we might try and meet your challenge. Without knowing what you are looking for - this thread is doomed to repeat itself over and over again. If we can criticise what you are looking for - or give it to you, maybe that would give us a fresh angle before a moderator decides 600 posts is more than enough to put our best positions forward.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Something peer reviewed that clearly uses induction. If there is good evidence that induction is actually used by science, then there should be a peer reviewed scholarly article that thoroughly refutes Popper. Perhaps you can provide a citation. 'Clearly refutes' is an unusual term - there are certainly papers in the scientific literature that disagree with Popper such as International Journal of Epidemiology 1998:27:543-548Induction versus Popper: substance versus semantics, Sander Greenland, but clearly refuting something like Popper's opinions? Surely that would come down to a matter of opinion in its own right? The cited paper gives some perceived problems and areas of agreement with Popper, and that's all you are likely to get from an honest writer. But your former challenge is empty of content. I asked you, in a number of ways
quote: And your response is to take part of my formulation of my challenge 'What would be evidence of induction in science?' and try to answer that literally. But my overall question, the point of the words I wrote was to try to get you to tell me what would a clear use of induction look like? I have pointed at examples in peer reviewed work and you deny it is induction. So what would it look like so that I might try and find it in the literature.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
The Pythagorus theorem is still a general principle that is derived by deductive reasoning. But is it not a particular theorem that was derived from more general principles of geometry?
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
If it is derived from particular examples, then it already has appealed to these particular examples to gain acceptance. If it is derived from nothing (e.g., made up from a dream), then it will have to appeal to particular examples to gain acceptance. And if it is derived from the general principles of geometry then it does not serve as a falsifying example of the idea that deduction is deriving particulars from generals.
Either way, it is certain that we cannot get around the appeal to particular examples if we are to do Science. Science operates off of information from the empirical world, and without the luxury of examining everything, we are stuck with limited amounts of this information. I know, I've been arguing this for some time now, I'm glad to see you agree with this. That's why I think induction is central to science. What has this to do with the derivation of Pythagoras' Theorem?
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