Induction and Science

What are the axiomatic principles of the universe?

So then, deduction is not possible on the universe.And you're asking why we use induction in science? My question to you is, what else is left?

How do we do that? At random?

Yeah, exactly. That's really been my point all along, but NWR seems to be very keen to describe inductive reasoning all the while refusing to label it as such.

You're not familiar with Darwin's observations at Galapagos, and aboard the Beagle?

Right. You just generalized the first statement from the second, proving Paul's point.

Nor did he explain origins in his book. (It's not a very good title.)What he did do was generalize the principle of natural selection from the specific instances of selection he observed.

I'm not familiar with any passage in his book where that's the case. Darwin's model explains the development of form, not the origin of populations. Like I said, it's not a good title, by our modern understanding of "species"; Darwin attempted to explain changes in morphology over time by generalizing from the changes he saw pigeon breeders inflect by selection. Right. He generalized from that evidence, as well. When you explain specific evidence via a statement of a universal trend, you're generalizing.

The formation of the species concept as one of reproductive isolation postdates Darwin. Indeed, the Mendelian model of discrete genetic inheritance and sexual recombination was unknown at the time, Mendel's paper languishing in an Austrian library.So, indeed, Darwin doesn't talk about the idea of speciation as an event because the formation of species as a function of population genetics was unknown. As far as Darwin was concerned, he merely needed to explain how organisms became morphologically suited to their environment, because that to him was the origin of what he thought of as "species." I guess I don't understand. Darwin inferred universal natural selection by generalization from specific cases of selection, recognizing that the only difference between a breeder plucking out the bad pigeons from the coop and mother nature plucking the less-fit pigeons from the jungle was a matter of who was doing the plucking.The specific evidence that Darwin generalized selection from were specific cases of selection.

Based on your posts, there seems to be only one two-step process to challenge induction:1) Get asked a bunch of questions.
2) Never answer any of them.

Induction is generalization of universal principles from specific cases. Deduction is anticipating specific cases by application of general principles.Therefore, this is induction, not deduction. Deduction has limited use in science and is essentially limited to the test of theory.

...which proceeds from comparison to an assumed, axiomatic standard. In other words, when we measure, we're taking it as a given that a meter really is a meter, etc.It caught me off-guard as well, but Rrhain is right on this one. Measurement is deductive, as it is a form of reasoning to the specific - this object is 1.2 meters in length - from a general axiom assumed to be true - a meter represents such-and-such distance.

Oh? You've never read a book on it? You've never opened a math textbook and read Euclid's axioms? Or Russel's? You recreated his entire Principia Mathematica, ex nihilo, starting from a basis of absolutely no training whatsoever?You've never taken notes? Used scratch paper? The thermometer is meaningless - literally, the expansion of the mercury indicates nothing - absent the fact that one degree Farenheight has been assumed to have a certain value.Our units of measure are axioms. Reasoning from those units - taking measurements - is deduction because it's the application of general axioms to specific cases. By definition, deduction. I know of no definition of deduction that requires that it be a process you can do all in your head.

That you don't do it all in your head. You needed external sources of information to be able to perform this sort of reasoning. Particularly, you needed to be handed the axioms in order to begin deduction. You didn't develop them on your own; you're operating from the axioms that have been accepted by the community of reasoners you wish your deductions to be accepted by. A unit of measure is abstract. The idea of a "meter" is abstract; there's no reason that a meter has to be as long as it is, it could easily be longer or shorter. We merely agree to accept without question the length of a meter; it's an axiom that is assumed but not proven. There's no proof that will derive the length of a meter. Sure we can. We can use an alcohol or mercury thermometer; or take advantage of the differential expansion of metals to create a bimetal strip that changes shape under heat; or we can create an electronic thermometer that measures changes in resistance or capacitance to detect changes in temperature.Temperature is also arbitrarily representable. We can represent and measure temperature in an arbitrary number of ways. I could do so, inaccurately, with my skin.

You're free to redefine "deduction" until you're blue in the face. I'll never understand why anyone would want to have an argument about what words mean. Could any topic be less interesting? Which exactly proves my point. You can't even begin to deduct until the axioms are supplied; thus, it's not a process you can complete in your head. You can't even begin to deduct absent an external source of information; the same with measurement.