forum for week of 24 October: Inference to the Best Explanation

These problem cases for inductive reasoning made me think about the assumptions that are embedded in each of these examples. The question becomes, what terms of discussion are we examining?

In the first case, are we defining the earth's population as the entirety of all living species or just the human population? If we assume that we are only discussing human population, then are we talking about the whole population, or the population broken down into subsets such as: death and birth rates, geographical trends, gender or generational divisions, socio-economic inferences, or the distinction between the developed and emerging worlds? The Inference to the Best Explanation for the over-all trend for global population is that it will continue to rise at an alarming, and possibly exponential rate. The patterns for increased growth are, globally, that in spite of war, disease, and disaster, are incontrovertible. There has been no contradictory evidence.

The Inference to the Best Explanation for the case where the lunatic believes that all times having been past can perhaps be summed up by the idea that while time is always moving forward, our sense of a moment in time immediately puts it in the past. As I type the word "now", the action itself becomes a past occur that can be explained after it has transpired (I typed the "now" five seconds ago). Therefore, all future events are past events waiting to happen.

My point here is that once you accept the hypothesis of an inductive argument, the IBE becomes difficult to challenge. -CLAIRE CHEVREAU