ES 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning, Scientific Theory

• School: NCSU
• Department: Environmental Science
• Course: ES 100
• Professor: Stephanie Jeffries

Document Summary

Scientists strive for: accuracy - correctness of measurements reproducibility - repeatability of results. Deductive reasoning - logical reasoning from general to specific. Inductive reasoning - reasoning from many specific observations to produce a general rule. It is also important to recognize the role of insight, creativity, aesthetics, and luck in research. Scientific theory - a description or explanation that has been supported by a large number of tests and is considered by experts to be reliable. Probability is a measure of how likely something is to occur. Scientists often increase confidence in a study by comparing results to a random sample or a larger group. Many statistical tests focus on calculating the probability that observed results could have occurred by chance (were random). Usually ecological tests are considered significant if this probability is less than 5%. The amount of confidence scientists have in the results depends upon the sample size as well.