Task: Discuss the problems of induction and give examples. You must include one example from your own learning experience. It would be an example you examined in one of your subjects, or it could be from personal experience.
I think the first question we shall ask ourselves is: what is induction? Induction is the process of taking into consideration general observations or personal experiences and state them as general beliefs. On the other hand, deduction is made of general statements enabling to make a specific conclusion. The difference between induction and deduction is that induction involves only a few statements to make a bigger general opinion whereas deduction involves various layers of possibilities and narrow down to a more reliable conclusion. Moreover, induction has several important features, but the most important one is that this intellectual way of reasoning never gives certain knowledge. For example, I am living in Singapore and it is 5pm in the afternoon, the sky is getting full of dark clouds, the wind it blowing harder, I can deduct that there’s a storm coming (deduction). However, it is still 5pm, I am sunbathing at my swimming pool, but as I know it is raining everyday at 5pm I will assume that it is going to start raining soon (induction). The main danger with induction is that it brings wrong beliefs to become general statements. If we can take a world major dramatic consequence of induction comes to our mind the World War Two and how Hitler’s anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education, taking for granted the beliefs that Jews held an inferior status to Aryan Christians. As a leader he developed and built up this general statement/beliefs by publishing Mein Kampf and obliging his nation to follow him in his belief. Interestingly, the most famous “inductors” are persons who demonstrate strong leadership qualities and purposefulness. Based on my own experience when I first visit Japan for my 16th birthday, I was