What is Popper's problem of induction? Can someone explain?

Answer 1

Induction really only has one problem. And that problem is that it doesn't logically work.

Induction is the process of drawing conclusions about overall trends based on a limited sample size. Picturing the large from the small. For example, on every day that you've been awake to notice you see the sun rise, thus inductive reasoning tells you that they sun ALWAYS rises every day, even though you don't have the evidence of all future and past days to prove it.

Now that SEEMS reasonable, but consider another case: You flip a coin a thousand times, and every time it comes up heads. Inductive reasoning would suggest that this coin therefore ALWAYS comes up heads. But we know that the above case is a statistically possible one and the chance of heads on the next flip is still 50%, not 100%.

So that's the problem with induction, and with all of science, really. We draw conclusions based on necessarily finite evidence and thus all of them may be prone to sampling error. Link below for much longer explanation.

Answer 2

Induction is a form of reasoning that begins with the specific and flows to the general sense. In most instances it is a difficult task to generalize from anything specific. Whereas deduction is an inference in which the conclusion about particulars follows necessarily from general or universal premises.

Answer 3

The way I remember it Popper's falsification theory was the cure for Hume's problem with induction.