Deductive and Inductive Arguments

1. After reviewing pages 454-459, 432-436 of your textbook, respond to the following:
◦ Identify the differences between deductive and inductive arguments.
◦ Additionally, explain how misleading reasoning is used to influence others.
◦ Then, select a topic of interest to you and explain how you would come up with a reliable sample for obtaining peoples' opinions.

A deductive argument is one in which it is impossible for the premises to be true but the conclusion is false. The conclusion follows necessarily from the premises and inferences. In this way, it is supposed to be a definitive proof of the truth of the claim (conclusion).
An inductive argument is one in which the premises are supposed t support the conclusion in a way that if the premises are true, it is improbable that the conclusion would be false. The conclusion follows probably from the premises and inferences.
It might seem that inductive arguments are weaker than deductive arguments because there must always remain the possibility of their arriving at false conclusions, but that is not entirely true. With deductive arguments, our conclusions are already contained, even if implicitly, in our premises. This means that we don’t arrive at new information; at best we are shown information that was obscured or unrecognized previously.
Inductive arguments on the other hand provide us with new ideas and may expand our knowledge about the world in a way that is impossible for deductive arguments to achieve. While deductive arguments may be used most often with mathematics, most other field of research make extensive use of inductive argument.