Читать книгу This is Philosophy of Science - Franz-Peter Griesmaier - Страница 13

Scientists most often make use of induction, or drawing conclusions from evidence. Generally speaking, induction is an inference from the observed to gain information about the unobserved (or unexamined), and it takes three different forms: statistical inference, inductive generalization, and inference to the best explanation (IBE).

It is universally recognized that what these three forms of reasoning have in common is that they are defeasible. Beyond that, the terminology here is unfortunately not as widely agreed upon as it is with respect to deductive reasoning, but we can at least try to distinguish clearly between the three different forms of inductive reasoning just mentioned. Notice though that some textbooks in the sciences define inductive inferences as inferences from the particular to the general. This is misleading, because it covers only a tiny fraction of inductive inferences. We start with statistical inference.