Sunday, April 29, 2007

Abductive Reasoning

I learned the most facinating phrase the other day: abductive reasoning.

Here, according to Wikipedia, is its definition:
Abduction, or inference to the best explanation, is a method of reasoning in which one chooses the hypothesis which would, if true, best explain the relevant evidence. Abductive reasoning starts from a set of accepted facts and infers to their most likely, or best, explanations.
You learn something new every day. :-)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

what? I'm soooo confused, what did you say?
Alana Feliciano

Adelina said...

abductive reasoning is choosing your answer because, if it was true, it would make more sense than all of the other possible answers. that better?

Heather said...

Abductive reasoning: how to convince the aliens to let you off their flying saucer.

(Or is that abducted reasoning?)

(I hope I didn't send this twice-- my Internet's been acting up lately)

Adelina said...

I think that's definitely abducted reasoning. you know something to the effect of "I'm really important here on Earth, and if you don't let me go, the whole world will send nuclear explosives to you planet!" something like that.

Analie Pywtorak said...

Woah.... That's a rather complicated explanation. I think I'll need something more concise in order to better grasp the meaning. Lolz..

Adelina said...

there are lots of answers to your question, but you pick the answer that--if it were true--would make the most sense. how's that?