What are the basic elements of inductive reasoning?

Answer 1

ok...this is a major part that I have to include in all my assignments...demonstrate the ability to show deductive and inductive reasoning.

Inductive reasoning - goes from specific to general
Deductive reasoning - goes from general to specific

For example, say you were given a topic on fluorine...you could ask yourself, why is fluorine so highly reactive. Well, you could demonstrate inductive reasoning by stating that: "Fluorine is so highly reactive due to the valence electrons in it's outer shell. Fluorine only has 7 outer electrons but desires to have 8 (like all elements do), and so really tries to "pull up" to gain 8 electrons in its outer shell - that is why it reacts with almost every element on the periodic table. Since fluorine is so highly reactive, we would expect all the elements in that group to be highly reactive as well, since they ALL have 7 valence electrons in their outer shell."

So, i just made a statement there that could link all the elements in the same group as fluorine to be highly reactive because fluorine is highly reactive - this may not necessarily be true, BUT inductive reasoning requires us to do this (e.g. examining possibilities, etc.) to predict certain possibilities.

Deductive reasoning is just the opposite! Hope this helps! =)

Answer 2

There are essentially two types of inductive reasoning, weak induction and strong induction. Here's a website which does a good job explaining what induction is all about:

http://coweb.math.gatech.edu:8888/linear/748

Answer 3

Inductive reasoning is the opposite of deductive reasoning....deductive reasons with information at hand, inductive makes its own information.