Humian Induction

nesf

From Hume's "problem".

Inductive reasoning can be, from Hume's perspective, justified but never certain without certain qualifying premises. ie being distinct from deductive reasoning and deductive conclusions.

Do people think that this problem is ignored by much of modern interpretation of science and is this distinction no longer appreciated by some within and some without the scientific community?

In my opinion, quite often inductive conclusions are misrepresented and presented as deductive conclusions in order to forward an agenda. Would other's agree with me?

Apologies for any mistakes above

nesf

For anyone interested. There is an ok wiki article on the problem here.

It's a crucial problem for science and much of academia. The validity of inductive reasoning, or more impotantly how accurate one can assume the results of it to be, is something that any scientist or lay person needs to be aware of.


For instance, an example of the problem would be a study where 1000 people with lung cancer are observed. Now say that none of the 1000 ever smoked.

Now it's perfectly valid to say for this group that smoking did not play a role in causing their lung cancer. That much is deductive reasoning. An inductive conclusion would be to extend the result to cover all people with lung cancer. You assume uniformity amoung all people with lung cancer and that this group are demonstrative of them.

On one hand the inductive conclusion is perfectly valid. The problem is if someone decides to interpret it as a deductive conclusion.

This is what happens in the media. On occasion.

Sapien

I don't think this is a genuine problem for the epistemology of science.

Taking the examples from the wiki article you linked:

1. generalizing about the properties of an entire class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class of objects (for example, "All ravens we have seen are black, and therefore all ravens are black"); or

2. presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as they always have in the past (for example, the attractive force described by Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation, or Albert Einstein's revision in general relativity) is universal.

The first is resolved by simple recognition of logical fallacy: either Hasty Generalisation, or Unrepresentative Sample. I understand that these do not circumvent the actual philosophical quandary, but they allow for the practical enactment of science.

The second is covered by a) the fundamental assumption of physics that the rules of the universe do not vary over space or time, and b) Popperian falsifiability.

The value of Popper cannot be underestimated. Really, I can't imagine how anyone ever justified this whole science business before him. In a way he avoids such epistemological quandaries as the problem of induction by taking the idea of the description of truth out of the equation, and replacing it with the endeavour towards working models.

nesf

Cheers for the links

I was thinking of this quandry being more apparent in more "human" sciences than in "hard" sciences like physics. Physical conclusions tend to contain within them the necessary premises to get around the induction problem.

Physics tends to be tidy and while making inductive assumptions at times, it does tend to justify them in that they apply where reality behaves like this reality. Which to be fair is a justifiable and easily worked with assumption.

In fact physics as a science excels at finding the parts of reality that don't fit with the models. It's almost self-correcting by nature. Plus, physical conclusions tend to not be generalised by physicists. Physicists tend to be "realistic" with their theories, or at least more careful.

I wish the same could be said for people researching in the social sciences.

Sapien

Now I see what you mean.

Well, I get around that by declaring that all of the social sciences are irredeemable bunkum. :eek:

nesf

Sapien wrote:

Now I see what you mean.

Well, I get around that by declaring that all of the social sciences are irredeemable bunkum. :eek:

Yeah, personally I'd prefer if they didn't use the word science.

I think Social Speculative Studies has a much nicer ring to it

SkepticOne

Although I agree about the social "sciences", wasn't Hume's point the limits of knowlege itself and that no matter how careful you are, you are forced to make assumptions (whether or not you explicitly list them). You can't in principle know anything with absolute certaintly.

nesf

SkepticOne wrote:

Although I agree about the social "sciences", wasn't Hume's point the limits of knowlege itself and that no matter how careful you are, you are forced to make assumptions (whether or not you explicitly list them). You can't in principle know anything with absolute certaintly.

The more important point by Hume was that one could justify inductive conclusions by imposing certain premises. Thus in a sense making inductive conclusions valid reasoning.

This is the bedrock of the scientific method. The priniciple of uniformity and such are assumed by the method. It's just good to be aware of it.

Imho.

SkepticOne

I think you are right in terms of the importance for today. Hume takes a balanced approach to the problem of knowledge. On the one hand we can't know anything about causation in the world with absolute certainty. On the other hand, if we are willing to live with this uncertainty, it is possible to gain useful knowledge and this is built in to the way we operate naturally in the form of habits of belief. This is the mitigating aspect of his point about the imposibility of totally rational statements about causation in the world.

I was thinking that at the time of writing, the importance might have been different. Possibly he wanted to continue the attack on rationalism which equated knowledge with certainty (only possible in the abstract or mathematical sciences), Humes point being that such judgements about causality always involve an inductive leap.

nesf

SkepticOne wrote:

I think you are right in terms of the importance for today. Hume takes a balanced approach to the problem of knowledge. On the one hand we can't know anything about causation in the world with absolute certainty. On the other hand, if we are willing to live with this uncertainty, it is possible to gain useful knowledge and this is built in to the way we operate naturally in the form of habits of belief. This is the mitigating aspect of his point about the imposibility of totally rational statements about causation in the world.

I was thinking that at the time of writing, the importance might have been different. Possibly he wanted to continue the attack on rationalism which equated knowledge with certainty, Humes point being that such judgements about causality always involve an inductive leap.

*nods*

I agree. I was more thinking of it from "today's perspective" than from him in relation to his contemporaries which I do not know very well. I'm only a beginner at this stuff tbh, I'm just trying to learn by asking questions and tossing their ideas about in my own head.