Almost every website that talks about it says, “Inductive reasoning is a bottom up” approach while “deductive is a top down approach”.
Can anyone explain to me the THE DIFFERENCE? What makes these two forms of reasoning so different? Examples are always appreciated as well.
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To most philopshers:
Deduction is when you make 100% confident chains of logic. Like a proof of there being infinite prime numbers.
These deductions are allowed to have conditionals or hypthethetials or unfounded assumptions in them, but *if* those things are true, then the deduced conclusion is also surely true.
However Induction is when you use logic or reasoning to make statements that seem pretty likely due to evidence, but aren’t totally 100% solid. For instance, suppose that you go to hospital, and you happen to know that 95% of the nurses in this hospital are women. It would be *inductive* reasoning to say “The nurse I get will be a woman.” – that probably is true, but not certain.
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For a scientist, it is similar, but we might use these in a particular context.
For something very simple:
“If gravity is real, then this pen will fall when I drop it. I assume gravity is real, so therefore the pen will fall.” is deductive reasoning.
However, let’s say I do some experiments. “I dropped 100 pens, and they always fell. I therefore conclude that dropped pens will always fall.” that is inductive reasoning.
Maybe the scientist could be wrong. The next pen might not fall. Pens might not always fall. But have 100 pens fall each time you tested it is evidence that this is just how the world works.
Furthermore, “Since pens will always fall, and gravity predicts that pens would fall, gravity must be real.” is also inductive reasoning.
The scientist could be wrong again. Maybe something other than gravity is causing the pens to fall when dropped. The pens dropping is good evidence for gravity, but doesn’t totally 100% prove it.
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