All the same in every day life we all use induction. For example when we turn on the T.V. we expect a picture to appear or when the kettle whistles we assume the water is boiling. This process of making assumptions based on experience seems to be an essential aspect of human life. However, the problem with this is whether it is the correct and appropriate method of conducting science.
Inductive reasoning shouldn’t mean that we jump to conclusions on the basis of only a few observations or experiences. Instead that it proceeds from careful, unprejudiced sense observation of a particular event, to cautious generalisation, to even more cautious hypothesis and finally cautious theories. It was first/most famously proposed by Francis Bacon in the first half of the 17th century.
However there are some concerns with Bacon’s method. When does one stop collecting facts and observations and say that one has achieved a satisfactory generalisation? How many observations need to be done? A thousand? A million?
There seems to be no answer to these questions in Bacon’s system. One can spend most of their life collecting facts.
The alternative can be that whilst science is to some extent build on empirical research, almost all important scientific discoveries or advances have involved intuition or imagination. Scientists make intuitive guesses. Many perhaps to be wrong but progress in science has come from the guesses that were right.
Gathering evidence is essential in science but there also needs to be a creative input by the scientists. It may be said that science needs some kind of rationalist’s hold
Inductive reasoning was criticised by David Hume. He suggested that induction was based on a problem of circularity. In other words, because induction has worked in the past, it will continue to do so in the future.
He said that we use an inductive argument to confirm the validity of inductive arguments. It seems we can’t escape the circularity.
Hume’s criticism of induction can be related to his idea that one thing causes another. He pointed out that we proportion our belief that something is the case to the evidence we have for it. If we have a large number of experiments that gives us the same result, if one was to backfire and go wrong we tend to assume that the majority is right and that the one that failed was due to some kind of error.
To illustrate this for example, we assume that A is the cause of B. However all we have observed is the constant union of A following B and from this we assume that A has caused B. But this tends to be in some way an association of ideas and not something that we can prove to exist in this world.
Furthermore he claimed that when we see something happening once and assume it will happen again is not down to psychology and not logic. For example the fact that laws of physics have been found to hold good in the past does not logically entail that they will continue to do so in the future. According to Hume there is no logical basis for inductive reasoning. It is very vague basis to draw science upon and that pure empiricism is not enough as a basis for science.
Science jumps to conclusions and don’t realise that an error that can happen on an experiment can be critical. In other words, even if they do an experiment a million of times and the entire results match, except one, then the whole experiment must be wrong. One error must stop the whole procedure otherwise it can never show the outcome to be 100%.An error raises doubts about the rest of the experiment. Furthermore why say that the error is actually an error? All the other results even if they came to the same conclusion could be the wrong.
The fact that science needs to be tested shows their hypothesis is doubtful. For example; something deductive doesn’t need to be tested because if you accept the premises then you have to accept the conclusion. Its always 100% certain. But science being based on induction needs to be tested. This surely tells us something about science; science’s hypothesis can’t be as firm as the scientists think.
Karl popper wanted to solve the problem of induction; he wanted to know the distinction between science and pseudo science. His method was known as falsification. This approach was based on the attempt to find results that are contrary to predictions and thus make the hypothesis false.
Theories that are not falsified are retained /kept but they are not taken to be true because they may be falsified in the future. However, this process is used in all parts of science and we can have to some level confidence of those theories that resist falsification. In this way, whilst we may never know the absolute truth about the nature of the world we can get closer to it.
Science searches for the greatest of reliable information they can find. As a result the more opportunities there are to falsify a theory, the better the theory will be. This is because the more a theory tries to explain, the more attempts there is for the theory to be tested. For example Einstein’s theory of relativity is a theory of huge importance because it explains so much. Nevertheless even though it has not been yet falsified does not mean it won’t be falsified in the future.
In the swan example, when a black swan has been observed we can no longer hold as true that “all swans are white” . Because from one single observation of a black swan allows us to logically derive to the statement “not all swans are white”.
Popper distinguished between the logic of this situation and the methodology used. The logic being that if a single black swan has been observed then obviously it cannot be the case that all swans are white. However, the methodology makes it always possible to doubt the statement. For example: there may have been some kind of error in the observation; the swan may have been wrongly identified or etc.
Popper believed that we should always formulate our theories as clearly as possible so we could expose them to refutation but nevertheless says that we shouldn’t abandon our hope in the theories so easily because it would show that they were not tested as carefully as they should be.
He also claimed that in science what we claim to prove to know as true, is always possible that it will be turn out to be false. Is it not only regarding science but all over time most of what has been known at one time or another has eventually turned out to be false. So is a mistake to do what science does and that is to namely prove the truth of a theory, or justify our belief in a theory since it is logically impossible.
To conclude, it seems that the popular view that the sciences are bodies of established fact is completely flawed. Nothing in science as we have seen is permanently established. Science is quite visibly changing all the time as we have seen. What we observe to be a fact can depend on lots of things. Such as the technology we have, a naked eye can’t see the same as what a telescope can; and to what level can we trust induction.
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