Answer to Question 1
Inductive reasoning may be applied to a broader range of situations than those requiring causal or categorical inferences. For example, inductive reasoning may be applied to reasoning by analogy. An application of analogies in reasoning can be seen in politics. Analogies can help governing bodies come to conclusions. These analogies also can be used effectively to convey the justification of the decision to the public. However, the use of analogies is not always successful. This highlights both the utility and possible pitfalls of using analogies in political deliberation. In 2010, opponents of the war in Afghanistan drew an analogy to Vietnam to argue for withdrawing from Afghanistan. They asserted that the failure of U.S. policies to lead to a conclusive victory were analogous between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Some members of government then turned the tables, using an analogy to Vietnam to argue that withdrawal from Afghanistan could lead to mass slaughter, as they asserted happened in Vietnam after the Americans left. Thus, analogies can end up being made largely in the eye of the beholder rather than supporting the actual elements being compared. Analogies are used in everyday life as we make predictions about our environment. We connect our perceptions with our memories by means of analogies. The analogies then activate concepts and items stored in our mind that are similar to the current input. Through this activation, we can make a prediction of what is likely in a given situation. For example, predictions about global warming are being guided in part by people drawing analogies to times in the past when people believed either that the atmosphere warmed up or did not. Whether a given individual believes in global warming depends in part upon what analogy or analogies the individual decides to draw.
Answer to Question 2
Even without training, you can improve your own deductive reasoning by developing strategies to avoid making errors. For example, an unscrupulous politician might state that, We know that some suspicious looking people are illegal aliens. We also know that some illegal aliens are terrorists. Therefore, we can be sure that some of those people whom we think are suspicious are terrorists and that they are out to destroy our country The politician's syllogistic reasoning is wrong. If some A are B and some B are C, it is not necessarily the case that any A are C. This is obvious when you realize that some men are happy people and some happy people are women, but this does not imply that some men are women. Make sure you are using the proper strategies to solve syllogisms. Remember that reversals only work with universal negatives. Sometimes translating abstract terms to concrete ones (e.g., the letter C to cows) can help. Also, take the time to consider contrary examples and create more mental models. The more mental models you use for a given set of premises, the more confident you can be that if your conclusion is not valid, it will be disconfirmed. Thus, the use of multiple mental models increases the likelihood of avoiding errors. The use of multiple mental models also helps you to avoid the tendency to engage in confirmation bias. Circle diagrams also can be helpful in solving deductive reasoning problems.
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