Inductive & Deductive Reasoning

Deductive and Inductive reasoning

For my final blog for the term I am going to present an example of deductive and inductive reasoning.

This morning I woke to news of an apparent “terrorist attack” in London where a soldier was killed by two people who were then shot by armed police.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/latest/17290526/appalling-attack-in-britain-likely-terrorist-related-pm/

As the story unfolds the details are getting more and more accurate however I will base this part of the blog on the initial report I read first thing this morning.

There are several good examples in the article of Inductive reasoning in the initial story I will give the best example

The victim was a soldier (Reported by the reporter)

How did the reporter come to this conclusion?

PREMISE:             soldiers wear soldier’s uniforms

PREMISE:             The victim was wearing a soldier’s uniform

CONCLUSION:   Therefore the victim was probably a solider.

The inductive reasoning uses the word probably as it cannot be proven without a shadow of a doubt that the victim was a soldier. The reasoning is relatively weak as soldier’s uniforms can be purchase anywhere by anyone.

Searching through the news articles on yahoo.com.au and news.com.au at the moment it is apparent that a majority of the media’s arguments are based on inductive reasoning. As yet I have not found any with deductive reasoning.

The example of deductive reasoning come from a Coroner’s report on a boating incident that I was involved in the search and rescue for in 2009. http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/170339/cif-robinson-nk-tschannen-s-20121210.pdf

The deductive reasoning comes from a statement by a medical survival expert Dr Paul Luckin.

“A medical survival expert, assessed the prospect of a person surviving in a vessel submerged at 50m even if there was an air pocket. He considered there was no prospect due to the pressure that would be experienced at that depth.”

PREMISE:           No possibility of surviving at a depth of 50m

PREMISE:           The vessel was submerged at 50m

CONCLUSION:   No survivors were present in the vessel.

This is a valid argument as all premises are true which means the conclusion must also be true.

Deductive reasoning is rarely seen in media/news articles.