Argumentative Essay on Scientific Reasoning

In the quest for understanding the natural world, scientists task themselves with the work of providing elaborate descriptions of phenomena through careful observations and experiments that are subject to validation by other scientists. To justify whether scientific findings are reliable or not, scientists employ scientific thinking. According to Schafersman, scientific reasoning is critical to the scientific method because it involves critical thinking. It requires rationalism, empiricism, and skepticism. As a result, the scientific method entails logical, empirical evidence and the questioning of claims and conclusions. Consequently, theories, data, and observations also play an essential role in the scientific method but are not part of the whole process. In the field of philosophy, scientific reasoning plays a vital role in the process of looking for explanations of a phenomenon through important intellectual arguments. Results and conclusions are derived using the inductive and deductive method. However, there are a lot of debates surrounding the problems of induction about their applications in problem-solving.

Inductive arguments often arise from inductive forms of reasoning. In other words, inductive rationale refers to the process of taking past experiences and using them to describe present or future circumstances. Precisely, inductive thinking is what we extrapolate from our observations to draw our conclusions about what will happen (Boghossian). Therefore, the underlying assumption behind induction is that known cases can be used to provide information of the unknown facts. Proponents of this reasoning argue that all predictions are based on past experiences. For instance, people usually assume that sugarcane is sweet and lemons are bitter.

On the contrary, deductive method involves the kind of reasoning in which the premises are imagined to guarantee the truth of the conclusions, so long as mistakes are not made during the reasoning process. While inductive logic argues that the propositions of the premises need not guarantee the accuracy of the conclusions, deductive reasoning provides evidential and factual support of the outcome. However, it does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. An example of a deductive statement is, "If the T.V set is off either it has been turned off, or it has burned out. A reasoner may conclude that the T.V set is turned off, but this does not guarantee the truth of the claims. In summary, deductive method involves making of inferences in which there is a high relation between the assumptions of the observations and the conclusions where the claim is being made.

The problem of induction involves philosophical questions regarding inductive reasoning which aims at justification of generalizations about observations or prediction of future turn of events. The scientific method, therefore, puts into question the empirical claims made in everyday life. All scientific hypotheses have a conventional character relative to the practical observations they are supposed to justify, infer or predict, that could figure in any evidence about phenomena. As a result, there exists a logical gap between information obtained from the empirical observation and the logical certainties of a typical scientific theory. Different philosophers have argued that certain principles can bridge the gap of logic between empirical observations and theories whose truth we can validate. The propositions held by Brian and Jen, are aimed at giving reasonable confidence in the cause or causes of particular observed events.

Brian's Argument

Brian says, "Scientific theories are confirmed, inductively, by evidence, and this inductive connection with evidence is, for the most part, what makes scientific theories reliable and our belief in them justified. Without inductive confirmation, science would be no better epistemically than blind guesswork."

According to Brian, scientific theories must be supported by empirical evidence to eliminate subjectivity thus allowing for consistency. In this manner, if inferences are made about a particular phenomenon, the claims should be backed significantly by data to ascertain the truth. Once the findings have been established the data is analyzed, and conclusions are drawn. Such results should be subject to review and critique by other researchers.

Science is not imaginary; it deals with material entities that are identifiable and can be proved or disapproved. This nature of science allows humans to find solutions to problems. As a result, it entails the use of inductive methods of logic to identify similarities or resemblance to a given set of accepted facts. The conclusions of inference are usually said to be justified by the premises. Therefore, inductive confirmation plays a vital role in determining whether or not findings made from presumption ought to be inferred from the premises. While science accumulates a lot of observations from which theorizing is done, it requires the inductive process to subject its conclusions in a true of false validation process to obtain a fixed point of view.

Jen's Argument

Jen responds, "No, the inductive method is problematic because it has no justificatory assumption that nature is always uniform."

While Jen disagrees with the significance of the inductive process in validation of scientific theory, she argues that the nature of the universe is ever changing. According to her, assumptions should only be made based on the knowledge we have after thoroughly assessing a given situation. The argument by Jen discourages the making of assumptions from generalizations. Instead it proposes a way of extracting information from vague premises because things may not appear as we ought they should be. That nature is dynamic, and we are in no position to predict the turn of events and phenomenon. Practical validation is the only way that justifies the truth held by theory. Rather than relying on our instincts to make assumptions

Hume's criticisms

About the arguments put forward by Brian and Jen, some scholars like Hume are skeptic and argue that scientific method is not that simple and cannot be exhibited by mere conclusion from simple inductive reasoning. He claims that it is absurd to conclude unobserved situation. Neither deductive nor inductive methods can be used to establish knowledge from the external universe. Hume states that the problem with inductive reasoning is that it is only based on debates of whether to accept or refute the premises of an argument. The Problem of induction shows that usually there be may some missing elements to the singular statements, such that if one single statement is wrong, the universal declaration becomes false.

Naturally, there is always the likelihood that things will change in future. This nullifying all the past inferences that appeared to be certain. In short, Hume, claims that the things we usually consider as the truth are just but non-rational thinking. For some reason, we usually believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. Despite the fact that we always lack rational basis for our belief, we have no choice but to think it will occur anyway.

He further states that our way of thinking and imaginations only vary by our interpretation. As a result, habits, and customs play an essential foundation of the natural science. Our way of thinking about occurrences, therefore, is based on our personal experiences which vary among individuals. This is true because human beliefs about the universe cannot be supported by facts, justified nor regarded as a relation of ideas. Hume gives a unique source of the opinion that is naturalistic in the sense that it drives researchers to isolate ordinary claims from rational logic.

While our beliefs about the world consist of the unobserved, we sometimes tend to assume that the unseen is mostly part of the observed. Scientific reasoning constitutes sentences which are related in such ways that they are connected. The conclusions of inference are usually said to be justified by the premises. In this manner, logic plays a vital role in determining whether or not findings made from assumption ought to be inferred from the premises. The arguments discussed in the above essay changes our perception by bringing into question the very ground upon which we draw our conclusion in our daily life experiences. Specifically, Hume's critic on inductive and deductive reasoning plays an essential role in important shaping our scientific rationale about what our senses usually inform us. It opens our mind to a whole new world that is not only external to us but also independent from our thoughts.

Work Cited

Boghossian, P. " Blind reasoning." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 77, (2003): 225248. .