• What is the inductive method?
• Steps of the inductive method
• Inductive method examples
• Inductive method problems
• Differences with the deductive method

We explain what the inductive method is, its steps, possible problems and examples. Also, what is the deductive method.

This inductive method incorporates creativity and innovation.

What is the inductive method?

The method inductive is that procedure of research that puts into practice the thought or inductive reasoning. The latter is characterized by being broad, that is, generalizing, since it starts from premises whose truth supports the conclusion, but does not guarantee it.

Inductive reasoning thus consists of a form of hypothesis which, based on singular evidence, suggests the possibility of a universal conclusion. This is usually expressed in terms of odds, trends or possibilities, since it is not possible to affirm anything in a categorical way, since there is more vital information than that contained in the premises.

This form of reasoning is very valuable, since it incorporates the creativity and it allows to risk innovative conclusions that, although they cannot be demonstrated, they can be subjected to considerations, tests and validation mechanisms that, later, lead to the truth. For this reason, the inductive method is part of the scientific method, since it serves to expand the knowledge of the real world that we have.

The modern origin of the inductive method dates back to the seventeenth century and to the work of the English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), particularly his Novum organum scientiarum ("New scientific instruments") of 1620, where he specified the rules of scientific method.

It was opposed to the Aristotelian tradition of the time, in which only deductive reasoning was valued. Thus, Bacon tried to demonstrate the importance of inductive reasoning, but clarifying that to reach a conclusion it is necessary to exclude many other possibilities.

Later philosophers such as David Hume (1711-1776), John Herschel (1792-1871) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) continued the tradition inaugurated by Bacon, and they proposed different ways of approaching induction for rigorously scientific purposes.

Steps of the inductive method

Broadly speaking, the inductive method is carried out according to three consecutive steps or stages, which are:

• First: the phenomenon of interest is observed. This step is common to practically all the methods of the science, and consists of obtaining information of the real world through the use of the senses and instruments of measurement relevant.
• Second: possible patterns are established. This means that, from the comparison and collation of data, they look for some correlation, some indication that is revealing or that is common enough to assume general.
• Third: a theory is built. Finally, and based on the traced patterns, a generalizing conclusion is made, that is, one that attempts to account for all possible similar phenomena.

Perhaps these steps are easier to understand by using the examples below.

Inductive method examples

Here are some examples of application of the inductive method:

• First example.

Suppose a man moves to a new town, in which the climate is much colder than in yours. Since you are new there and want to know how to dress, you start paying attention to the sky and the temperature (observation). Thus, he realizes that the days when it dawns cloudy makes more heatWhile the days when the sky is clear, they tend to be colder (find patterns).

So from now on, when you see the sky clear, you will bundle up, and when you see it cloudy, instead, not so much (establish a theory). This man has applied induction correctly, and with any luck, he will have an acceptable margin of success to take his assumption for granted, although on some cloudy day he may be cold or on a clear day he may be hot.

• Second example.

In the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, many Business Pharmaceutical companies are investigating a vaccine. To do this, scientists study the virus and discover that it belongs to a family of similar viruses (that is, other coronaviruses) for which a successful vaccine was previously developed (observation).

Assuming that then the new virus will respond in a similar way to that of its relatives, they decide to replicate the methods of obtaining vaccines of the others, guided by the traits common to the family (find patterns). And finally, they develop two or three possible vaccines (establish theories), some of which will be successful and some of which will not.

Those that are not successful will allow the next ones to be fine-tuned, and until one of them is successful, and they can move on to other stages of scientific testing of the vaccine, taking an important step towards ending the pandemic.

• Third example.

This will be an example of valid but fallacious inductive reasoning. Suppose that a group of extraterrestrial archaeologists in a very distant future discover, among the ruins of what was our civilization, an important set of buried plastic bags.

Given that these products do not exist in your world, and that it would seem totally absurd to ruin the entire planet by producing non-biodegradable single-use plastic (observation), you do not know at first what exactly you have found.

But since it is an element present throughout our geological stratum, and especially in the archaeological sites of our cities (find patterns), they venture to a probable hypothesis: it must be some form of fossilization of the carbon in our bodies. .

So they take the bags and deposit them in their impressive futuristic museums, labeled "fragments of possible plastic mummification" (establishing theories). The extraterrestrial archaeologists are wrong, of course, but their inductive reasoning is quite plausible. They just didn't count on the factor of human self-destructiveness in their study.

Inductive method problems

The last example provided demonstrates the possible drawbacks of inductive thinking, and that in general they have to do with its inability to state a testable general conclusion, beyond question.

This is because it is a generalizing way of thinking, ideal for venturing probable hypotheses and for discovering trends (in fact, it is commonly used in statistics), but it is impossible for you to say with certainty that the conclusion follows logically from the premises. , since there is much more information outside the reasoning, as happened to the archaeologists of the third example.

Thus, the inductive method can lead to wrong conclusions. It can also, in principle, allow the intrusion of subjectivity and creativity much more easily than other forms of deductive thinking, in which the validity of the premises guarantees the validity of the conclusion.

Differences with the deductive method

The deductive method is one in which the conclusion logically comes from the analysis of the premises, that is, it is a verifiable and accurate logical deduction.

The most obvious case of deductive reasoning is the syllogism, a short logical form that comes from classical Greco-Roman antiquity. In the syllogism, two premises (one general and the other specific) guarantee the obtaining of a formally valid and accurate conclusion, whose value (true or false) will depend on the value of the premises, but not on the reasoning method.

It differs from the inductive method, in which the formal validity of the conclusion cannot be demonstrated. An example of a deductive method is the following syllogism:

Premise 1. All living things eventually die.
Premise 2. The human being is a living being.
Conclusion. All human beings eventually die.