Inductive and Deductive Knowledge - Week 8 TOK

In out last TOK lesson, we discussed some theories and scientific experiments and tests. One test was about writing positive words (e.g. love) on one box on rice, and writing negative words (e.g. hate) on another. Apparently after 3 weeks, the negative box was more mouldy than the positive box. As a sceptic, I don't believe in this sort of thing, as there is no evidence behind it besides a youtube video (how can we trust that??)

Deductive Knowledge (Narrowing Down)
This form of reasoning is from more specific to more general. You begin with a theory about a subject or topic. That is then narrowed down to a hypothesis that we can test. It is then narrowed down even further to collect observations to address the hypothesis. This leads us to be able to test the hypothesis with confirmation of our original theories. More narrow and focus is to testing and confirming hypothesis than Inductive. For example, every animal that eats mice is a cat. Rover eats mice. Therefore, Rover is a cat. The goal of deductive reasoning is to arrive at a valid chain of reasoning, in which each statement holds up to testing, but it is possible for deductive reasoning to be both valid and unsound.

Inductive Knowledge (Generalizing)
Works the other way of Deductive, moving from more specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. With inductive reasoning, you start with specific observations. Then you begin to detect patterns and regularities, then formulate an un-final hypotheses that we can explore, and finally ending by developing some general conclusions or theories. More open-ended and exploratory.Isaac Newton, for example, famously used inductive reasoning to develop a theory of gravity Using observations, people can develop a theory to explain those observations, and seek out disproof of that theory.