Inductive Reasoning

This chapter discusses a number of the methods that have traditionally been used to learn about the whole from a study of its parts. They include sensory observation, enumeration, analogical reasoning, pattern recognition, causal reasoning, and statistical reasoning.

Induction is a major kind of reasoning process in which a conclusion is drawn from particular cases. And a preliminary conclusion derived from inductive reasoning is called a hypothesis. All of the “conclusions” given in the preceding examples were prematurely drawn; their sampling was insufficient to warrant their conclusions. For example, a preschooler might conclude that dolphins are fish because they live in water and swim as fish do. After that we have to be continually willing to modify and refine our hypotheses depending on the feedback we receive. Perhaps, Adolescents might have heard that dolphins are mammals. They could test this hypothesis by identifying the definition of mammal and testing whether it applies to dolphins.