What do you understand of the term "inductive reasoning" by Pollit and Hungler, 1995?
482267
Inductive reasoning is the process of arriving at a conclusion based on a set of observations. \n  In itself, it is not a valid method of proof. Just because a person observes a number of situations in which a pattern exists doesn't mean that that pattern is true for all situations. \n   For example, after seeing many people outside walking their dogs, one may observe that every dog that is a poodle is being walked by an elderly person. The person observing this pattern could inductively reason that poodles are owned exclusively by elderly people. This is by no means a method of proof for such a suspicion; in fact, in the real world it is a means by which people and things are stereotyped.\n  A hypothesis based on inductive reasoning, can, however, lead to a more careful study of a situation. \n  By inductive reasoning, in the example above, a viewer has formed a hypothesis that poodles are owned exclusively by elderly people. The observer could then conduct a more formal study based on this hypothesis and conclude that his hypothesis was either right, wrong, or only partially wrong.
10078
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.\n\nIt entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking - in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes - is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking. \n\nCritical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results. \n\nCritical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one's own, or one's groups', vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use. \n\nCritical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on , among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.
191250
Mathematicians have proven that, in general, 1 + 1 = 2. It took them awhile to do it, but they succeeded. Unless the time truly comes when there is a need to ignore this generalisation, this assumption made is as good as any other axioms ever declared by the wise logicians.
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Deductive.\n\nWhen you know a rule and apply it to a situation, you are DEDUCING the solution in that situation.\n\nThe other type of reasoning is inductive.\nWhen you observe many examples of a particular behavior (or relationship, or whatever), you may conclude INDUCTIVELY that it will occur in ALL situations. (But of course you can't be SURE that it will. Your degree of confidence is based on the number of situations in which you have seen it happen, and the fact that you have never seen it NOT happen.)
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Have you heard of Occam's razor?\nIt says that to explain a framework, entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.\n\nFurthermore, when multiple competing theories have equal predictive powers, the principle recommends selecting those that introduce the fewest assumptions and postulate the fewest hypothetical entities.\n\nNow, let's say God created heaven and earth. We introduce another element into the framework - God, that brings with it a whole new range of questions like Who created God, when did he start existing, what before him.\n\nThis doesn't simplify the argument, but makes it more complex. So, explain it with the least set of assumptions, being everything based on scientific principles which are all explained by mathematics.\n\nHope this is a logical and respectful argument.
938293
There's proof by deduction, proof by process of elimination, proof by contradiction and proof by induction.
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It's a concrete example of his indeterminancy theory.  Now, I'm going off the top of my head with what I recall about it, so I might be wrong about details.\n\nYou set up a box so that if a radioactive emission hits a sensor, a gun will fire into the empty chamber.  You place a cat in the chamber, and close the box.  Until you open the chamber, you cannot know whether the cat is alive or dead.  In other words, the cat is in neither state until it is observed to be one or the other.  \n\nI've had not enough sleep, so I hope I did well.
485636
Yup. Because in the integrated definition of the afore mentioned appropriation that you collaborated and presented, the integral section of the multi-answerable response would be internationally and irreputably inconsistent with the immesaureable antecedent to the original propositional theoretical deliberation you asked us to focus on!!!!!
420637
I think you might find that engagement in logic and reasoning is an activity that is undertaken voluntarily, when it suits a particular purpose. The proportion of one's time spent in these activities is not related specifically to intelligence, but to other social factors. For instance, if one doesn't agree with the opinions or beliefs of a particular group of people, it might simply be easier and faster to assume that these people are of lower intelligence, rather than provide any evidence whatsoever of their potential motives for holding those beliefs or opinions, or evidence that they are, in fact, of lower intelligence.\n\nThis doesn't mean that the person him/herself is of lower intelligence for jumping to an easy assumption (in this case, that this particular group of people is of lower average intelligence). This person could have abandoned logic and reason for a variety of reasons. This person could simply be lazy, or heavily biased. In any case, it would be in this person's argument's best interest to actually bring statistical evidence to the table, otherwise there is no real way the claim might be supported (though it might be superficially supported in its current form by those who happen to share the person's particular opinion, for whatever reason). This is not the hallmark of true inquiry; rather, it is the hallmark of true rhetoric. While rhetoric has its place in inquiry and the search for truth, all too often it is passed off AS the truth, an activity which is in no one's best interests except those trying to espouse and spread an opinion that is not based on accepted facts (in this case, that this particular group of people are of lower average intelligence).\n\nSadly, such tactics can at times be construed to be intentional. Sometimes a person might take a personal belief, no matter how erroneous, and pass it off as fact to support an argument motivated by any number of dubious motives, from malice to simple jealousy. This is a true hallmark or racial propaganda, for instance.\n\nAt the core of the matter may be a simple concept: both the humanist and Christian (I won't comment of other schools of thought or religions, though they exist) ideas that the individual human has intrinsic value. Basing an argument on the idea that one person or group of people has some negative quality, like low intellignce, does a great disservice to the discourse. Arguments that contain such personal motivations invariably end up being beside the point anyway.
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The Brown University pattern theory group is working with the belief that the world is complex, and to understand it, or a part of it, requires realistic representations of knowledge about it. We create such representations using a mathematical formalism, pattern theory, that is compositional in that the representations are built from simple primitives, combined into (often) complicated structures according to rules that can be deterministic or random. This is similar to the formation of molecules from atoms connected by various forms of bonds. \n\nPattern theory is transformational in that groups or semigroups of transformations operate on the primitives. These transformations express the invariances of the worlds we are looking at. \n\nPattern theory is variational in that it describes the variability of the phenomena observed in different applications in terms of probability measures that are used with a Bayesian interpretation. This leads to inferences that will be realized by computer algorithms. Our aim is to realize them through codes that can be executed on currently available hardware.
430488
To begin with we need to look at the question and the language used to ask for answers. First is "logic". A simple definition is provided by Wikipedia which states:\n\n"Logic, from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, (but coming to mean thought or reason) is most often said to be the study of criteria for the evaluation of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy among philosophers. However the subject is grounded, the task of the logician is the same: to advance an account of valid and fallacious inference to allow one to distinguish good from bad arguments.\n\nTraditionally, logic is studied as a branch of philosophy. Since the mid-nineteenth century logic has been commonly studied in mathematics, and, even more recently, in computer science. As a formal science, logic investigates and classifies the structure of statements and arguments, both through the study of formal systems of inference and through the study of arguments in natural language. The scope of logic can therefore be very large, ranging from core topics such as the study of fallacies and paradoxes, to specialist analyses of reasoning such as probably correct reasoning and arguments involving causality."\n\nSecond, we must look at the word "truth". It is important to note that the word is not capitalized so we can avoid metaphysical theory or definitions based on cultist beliefs, such as christianity or other god-dependent or deity dependent definitions. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is quoted as proposing that truth is:\n\nA preliminary issue, although somewhat subsidiary, is to decide what sorts of things can be true. Is truth a property of sentences (which are linguistic entities in some language or other), or is truth a property of propositions (nonlinguistic, abstract and timeless entities)? The principal issue is: What is truth? It is the problem of being clear about what you are saying when you say some claim or other is true. The most important theories of truth are the Correspondence Theory, the Semantic Theory, the Deflationary Theory, the Coherence Theory, and the Pragmatic Theory. Whichever theory of truth is advanced to settle the principal issue, there are a number of additional issues to be addressed: \n     1. Can claims about the future be true now? \n     2. Can there be some algorithm for finding truth –        some recipe or procedure for deciding, for any claim in the system of, say, arithmetic, whether the claim is true? \n     3. Can the predicate "is true" be completely defined in other terms so that it can be eliminated, without loss of meaning, from any context in which it occurs? \n     4. To what extent do theories of truth avoid paradox? \n     5. Is the goal of scientific research to achieve truth? \n\nLogic is one form of epistemological approach to ascertaining knowledge. It is the "how we know what we know and the limitations of that knowledge". Logic is a tool for explanation of the ideas, observations, and experiences. It could also be said that logic is sometimes used poorly to acertain truth. Most clearly in areas of theology. Logical fallacies and faulty logic come most readily to mind. But that is another question for another time.
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hmmm....I looked through my text and course notes (I'm taking digital logic design this term) and I can't find a thing.\nIs there another name for it?\nTry google?\nAnyway, when you find out, I'd like to know!\n\nAdios.\n\nPS. helpful it would be if you mentioned whether this was software type logic or digital type logic (like combinational logic and exor gates)...
743475
Actually, it's nominative determinism, the tendency of people to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names (sorry to be pedantic!).\n\nThe British magazine New Scientist has been keeping its readers updated with plenty of examples over the last 10 years or so.
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In logic, begging the question is the term for a type of fallacy occurring in deductive reasoning in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises. For an example of this, consider the following argument: "Only an untrustworthy person would run for office. The fact that politicians are untrustworthy is proof of this." Such an argument is fallacious, because it relies upon its own proposition—in this case, "politicians are untrustworthy"—in order to support its central premise. Essentially, the argument assumes that its central point is already proven, and uses this in support of itself.\n\nBegging the question is also known by its Latin name petitio principii and is related to the fallacy known as circular argument, circulus in probando, vicious circle or circular reasoning. As a concept in logic the first known definition in the West is by the Greek philosopher Aristotle around 350 B.C., in his book Prior Analytics, where he classified it as a material fallacy.\n\n"That begs the question" is an apt reply when a circular argument is used within one Syllogism. That is, when the deduction contains a proposition that assumes the very thing the argument aims to prove; in essence, the proposition is used to prove itself, a tactic which in its simplest form is not very persuasive. For example here is an attempt to prove that Paul is telling the truth:\n\nSuppose Paul does not lie when he speaks. \nPaul speaks. \nTherefore, Paul is speaking truth. \nThese statements are logical, but they do nothing to convince one of the truthfulness of the speaker. The problem is that in seeking to prove Paul's truthfulness, the speaker asks his audience to assume that Paul is telling the truth, so this actually proves "If Paul is not lying, then Paul is telling the truth." which is nothing more than a tautology.\n\nIt is important to note that such arguments are logically valid. That is, the conclusion does in fact follow from the premises, since it is in some way identical to the premises. All self-circular arguments have this characteristic: that the proposition to be proved is assumed at some point in the argument. This is why begging the question was classified as a Material fallacy rather than a Logical fallacy by Aristotle.\n\nThe term is usually not used to describe the broader fallacy that occurs when the evidence given for a proposition is as much in need of proof as the proposition itself. The more accepted classification for such arguments is as a fallacy of many questions.
12299
An effective argument is subjectively convincing while objectively following the rules of logic by avoiding using fallacies to argue the point. Typical fallacies include circular reasoning, ad hominem arguments and so on.
6796
It relates to humans not being rational - one of the axioms of rationality is that preference is transitive - that is, if I like A better than B, and B better than C, then I must like A better than C.\n\nUnfortunately, in studies, humans often create circular rankings like the one you describe when asked to make each judgment independently - particularly when they don't think about any given judgement in depth.\n\nMore information should be available by researching "decision making" and "reasoning", depending on the timescale of the judgments - decision making pertains to snap decisions, whereas reasoning tends to involve choices with multiple seconds or minutes of thought.
5452
All people think. Some do it with greater success than others. \n\nYou can teach logic and you can teach patterns of inquiry, but I don't believe you can "teach" synthesis or evaluation. Some forms of analysis maybe because they can be pattern based. What a good teacher can do though is create situations where challenge and practice are possible.