Question

Explain the rationale of Induction, deduction, and abduction reasoning in the below examples:

a) John is a human and John can swim, therefore all human can swim.

b) The teachers told the headmaster "The students have handphones. Please take them".

c) Adam sees Aminah as the most beautiful lady. Therefore, Aminah is the most beautiful lady

Answer 1

a) The first statement is inductive reasoning. Induction reasoning makes broad generalizations from specific observations. Here, the statement "John is a human and John can swim" is a specific observation. The conclusion that has been made is "All human can swim", which is a broad generalization. Thus, it is inductive reasoning.

b) The second statement is abductive reasoning. This is because the statement is made taking into consideration that the students have phones with them. Since no other information is available here, the inference has been drawn from an incomplete observation, which is abductive reasoning.

c) The third statement is deductive reasoning. Here, at first, a general statement is made that "Adam sees Aminah as the most beautiful lady”, which can be considered as a hypothesis. From this, a specific conclusion is reached that “Aminah is the most beautiful lady". This refers to deductive reasoning.

If you liked the answer please give an up-vote, this will be quite encouraging for me, thank you!!