top | item 29932510

(no title)

RickyS | 4 years ago

Is it though? In science one uses deductive, inductive and abductive inferences right?

discuss

order

Mystlix|4 years ago

The laws of thermodynamics, for example, just like all the laws of physics, are just consistencies we have observed not breaking after decades of trying every corner case we can conjure up. They are quite literally the definition of inductiveness: you see that something holds for a solid number of cases so you assume that it just holds for everything else too. Of course any scientist who hasn't just memorized a bunch of formulas but has actually grasped the reasoning behind science will tell you that even the most fundamental law of the universe has a possibility of being false, just like the Riemann Hypothesis can't be considered proven just because it works for an unfathomable amount of computed values.

Science is about creating models and then studying them and making predictions off of them. The making of the model is an inductive and empiric ordeal, whereas working on said model is a matter of deduction.