A close look at Deductive referencing.
There are two terminologies which scientists and philosophers all over the world use to discover, rectify, testify and establish something for once and for all. They provide the ultimate breakthroughs in Scientific reasoning. Scientists often tell us things about the world that we would not otherwise have believed. For example, biologists (some) inform us that we are closely related to chimpanzees, geologists tell us that Africa and South America used to be joined together, and cosmologists not far behind with their Universe-Expanding philosophies...
But how did they reach to these key discoveries which were once victimized as lunacy beyond the wildest imagination? After all, no one has seen a single continent split into two or the universe getting bigger. The answer, of course, is that scientists arrived at these beliefs by an interesting process of reasoning or inference. But it would be nice to know more about this process. What exactly is the nature of scientific reasoning? It's a cute question. Moreover, how much confidence should we place in the inferences scientists make? These are the topics we will hopefully look to cover in this series.
Whether it be Galileo Galilei's mind processed experimentation of the dropping of two different sized objects (further varying in mass) to determine which one touches the ground first, or few centuries later, Albert Einstein's penny dropping, sweet little formula; E=mc² - scientists/philosophers in between them, before and after, and even today put their trust and hard work testifying and observing everything nature of science has to offer them through the use of deductive and inductive reasoning.
Let's begin by identifying deductive inferences, in this type of scientific reasoning, we acquire the help and support of logic, straightforward talking and common sense encountering. An example of a piece of deductive reasoning, or a deductive inference is the following;
All Frenchmen like red wine.
Pierre is a Frenchman.
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Therefore Pierre likes red wine.
The first two statements of the inference are called the premises, while the third statement is called the conclusion. This is a deductive inference because it consists of the following property: if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true too. In other words, if it's true that all Frenchman like red wine, and that Pierre is a Frenchman, then it's a certified reality that Pierre likes red wine. This is sometimes expressed by saying the premises of the inference entails the conclusion.
Obviously, the premises of this inference is almost certainly not true, there are bound to be Frenchmen who do not like red wine. But as mentioned, what makes this inference deductive is the existence of an appropriate relation between premises and conclusion, namely that if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.
Here some more examples of Deductive reasoning;
Every Astronomer believes there is life on other planets.
Harry is an Astronomer.
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Meaning Harry believes in life on other planets.
All birds have feathers, robins are birds, so robins have feathers.
Deduction is indeed a very safe route to take, especially in the daunting field of Science. In the next post we will note down the other route (which certainly may not be as safe) Induction, with clarification.
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Part 2 here
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Part 2 here
