Think Piece of Scientific Reasoning
By Zuraida
There
are two kinds of the way to state scientific reasoning, deduction and
induction. In order to state the logics, there are two concepts of statements
that have to be considered, premises of the inferences and the conclusion. The
deductive inference has this following property: if the premises are true, then
the conclusion must be true too. When we reason deductively, we can be certain
that if we start with true premises, we will end up with a true conclusion. On
the other hand, the premises of the inductive inference do not entail the
conclusion. Inductive reasoning is quite capable of taking us from true
premises to false conclusion. Despite this defect, we seem to rely on inductive
reasoning throughout our lives, often without even thinking about it. This
phenomena is quiet interesting. Why do we have to rely on whit this inductive
reasoning that quite capable of taking us to false conclusion?
The
scientists also use this inductive reasoning whenever they move from limited
data to a more general conclusion, which they do all the time. But, Karl Popper claimed that scientists only
need to use deductive inferences. Although inductive reasoning is not logically
water light, it nonetheless seems like a perfectly sensible way of forming
beliefs about the world. But, again, David Hume argued that the use of
induction cannot be rationally justified at all, we can give no satisfactory
answer, he thought. Then, appear a term of “inference to the best explanation”.
Well, this is kind of any inference which is not deductive.
From
the chapter two, I can conclude that, the scientific reasoning that used by
scientists and philosophers is not only mean for their own interest on fields
of science, but also applied to critic their own way of thinking. If it so, I
can see now that we can conclude that there is no truly truth but only
scientific truth, relativity.
