Every society needs a body of scientific knowledge through which to understand at least those aspects of the world directly relevant to its basic survival: how to get food, seek shelter, manufacture tools, and so on. But each society also needs rules that will govern the interactions of its people—with each other and with the world around them.
The whole board in the game of life must be covered; all the questions must be answered and all the moves regulated—if not by science, then by nonscience. Because of this, one realm cannot absolutely argue against the other.
One cannot be set in opposition to the other with the goal of one taking precedence. To be sure, conflicts have always arisen. If they didn't, cultures would never change. But the resolution of such conflicts is not the victory of one sort of knowledge over the other but the reestablishment of a harmonious relationship, most likely by re-arranging the organization of the contents of each type of knowledge—that is, of those aspects of the world each speaks for and explains.
For instance, the current debate in this country over abortion will not be "won" by the practical reasons for the practice nor by some philosophical ethic concerned with freedom-of-choice nor by a formal religious belief which considers abortion to be murder. Rather, the issue will be resolved, if it is resolved at all, by the evolution of a collective cultural "decision" on the matter. This decision will end up fitting into one of the spheres of knowledge and thus come under its purview.
It may be that abortion will become "normal," entirely legal, and morally acceptable though not universally practiced or liked simply because the practical reasons for it become so pervasive that the practice increases to the point of being part of the cultural system. Or the moral compunctions against it may become so strong and widespread that other solutions are found to the practical problems which led to the practice in the first place, and it will become needed only in rare circumstances.
Whatever happens will involve not a victory but a realignment of how our culture operates in terms of the interactions of scientific and nonscientific knowledge. Pseudoscience is another matter altogether and is the real problem at issue here, for it confuses these other two areas of knowledge and endeavor and, in doing so, brings them into forced conflict with each other.
Both are harmed in the process. Pseudosciences have the following characteristics:. So, it is the pseudosciences against which we are arguing—not the nonsciences—and it is the conscious confusing of these two by pseudoscientists that is one of the biggest threats to rational thought.
But there is still one more distinction to be made in order to avoid misinterpretation. We must look at motive. As I said, in our culture we view the treatment of disease in a scientific fashion. Any ideas about disease akin to those of the Fore would have to be considered by us to be pseudoscientific. The Fore would be attempting to answer questions about natural phenomena through nontestable, unchanging, a priori beliefs taken on faith.
But not everyone who believes such ideas, even within this society, can be considered a pseudoscientist with the conscious motives that the name implies. There are, for example, "faith healers" who are little more than charlatans.
But there are at the same time many for whom nonscientific answers to questions of disease fall entirely and logically under the nonscience realm of knowledge.
For them there is no conscious effort to confuse anyone else, no ulterior motives behind the expression of their beliefs. The problem here is simply that, for such people, their categories of knowledge are not aligned and organized in accord with those of their society as a whole.
While we may be inclined to try to "educate" such people, we should not treat them as we do those who do have ulterior motives. Indeed, believers in such ideas are often the victims of proselytized confusion. And such confusion certainly was the case with most of those at my debate with Duane Gish who shouted "Amen! We must, then, be careful to fight only those who deserve it, while, at the same time, try to impart knowledge to those who, out of ignorance or vulnerability, have succumbed to pseudoscientific nonsense.
And one way to assist us in both these endeavors is to keep clear the distinctions between the two legitimate and the one illegitimate spheres of human knowledge and to understand that, at the hands of the latter, both of the former suffer—to the detriment of society itself. Make a Donation Today. Give a Gift Membership.
More Ways to Give. Member Services FAQs. Legacy Society. Science Champions Society. From these, therefore deductive logical reasoning can be simply defined as the way of thinking and applying different phenomenon from general one to the specific as part so that to get a conclusion by the help of other process: on the other hand inductive reasoning in research defined by Herman as the thinking process that one proceeds from specific to general.
Also it defined by Bradley and Dawden as the one which intended to be individually strong. They therefore it is the process of thinking where a researcher starts from specific argument to general argument example;.
Lubuva is a politician. Lubuva come from Mzumbe University. Therefore all students from Mzumbe University are politicians. In the process of generalization in research, inductive reasoning use a selective elements to sample. Distinctively, deductive reasoning in research generalization is acting vice versa to inductive whereby it uses the population to generalize. Deductive use the general solution obtained from the population to make generalization not on the single event or findings.
Deductive reasoning is explores deductively valid reasoning, meaning that the conclusion under this follows certainity from the premises. Example of this is the mathematical proof; mean while inductive logic reasoning is less secure reasoning meaning that the conclusion follow from its premises with probability but not with certainty.
Generally, these two approaches are useful in any scientific research due to demands of researcher to conduct a clear research where should use the combination of two methods. Therefore in a scientific research the so called inductive-deductive method is nowadays applied by vast number of researchers because it used to accumulate the knowledge in both aspects of reasoning.
Brian, G. Logical Reasoning. Dowden, B. Mwanza: Mahelo Book Centre. Skyrms, B. Tags Scientific and Non-Scientific Research. About Unknown. Labels: Scientific and Non-Scientific Research. No comments:. Newer Post Older Post Home. Subscribe to: Post Comments Atom. Post Bottom Ad. Edit This Menu. Social platforms facebook. This contrasts with methods that rely on pure reason including that proposed by Plato and with methods that rely on emotional or other subjective factors.
Scientific experiments are replicable. That is, if another person duplicates the experiment, he or she will get the same results. Scientists are supposed to publish enough of their method so that another person, with appropriate training, could replicate the results. This contrasts with methods that rely on experiences that are unique to a particular individual or a small group of individuals. Results obtained through the scientific method are provisional; they are or ought to be open to question and debate.
If new data arise that contradict a theory, that theory must be modified. For example, the phlogiston theory of fire and combustion was rejected when evidence against it arose. The scientific method is objective.
It relies on facts and on the world as it is, rather than on beliefs, wishes or desires. Scientists attempt with varying degrees of success to remove their biases when making observations. Strictly speaking, the scientific method is systematic; that is, it relies on carefully planned studies rather than on random or haphazard observation. Nevertheless, science can begin from some random observation.
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