224 CHAPTER 16^ Foundations of Persuasion
Here’s how inductive reasoning works in everyday life. You buy a new car and love
its features. Your car is one specific example. You talk to other owners who similarly love
the same make and model. Consumer Reports rates the car highly, based on the features
and repair records of cars like yours. The car’s reputation becomes established: This
make and model is a good buy.
Kimball used these three examples in his speech on ocean acidification to support
his conclusion.^39
• Five years ago in Willapa Bay, Washington, it was discovered that oyster larvae
weren’t building shells and growing into adults; experts blamed ocean acidification.
• Tests off California’s coast show disintegrating seashells and deterioriating shells of
mollusks in the waters there.
• Corals from sixty-nine of the reefs comprising the Great Barrier Reef off Australia
showed a drop in calcification.
Generalization: Destructive forces are at work in the Pacific Ocean.
Because you can be sure of a conclusion only if you can observe 100 percent of a
population, it is ideal, but highly improbable, to look at every example before you form
a conclusion. Consequently, select a representative sample, survey the characteristics
of that sample, formulate conclusions and then generalize your findings to the larger
population it represents. But use caution: If Kimball reported only on Pacific Ocean
research, he couldn’t necessarily assume that his conclusions applied globally. Other
factors may be at work in different waters.Testing Inductive Reasoning
The three major tests for inductive reasoning are all linked to the tests you used to
evaluate examples in Chapter 8.- Are enough cases represented to justify the conclusion? Or are you forming a
conclusion based on too few cases? - Are the cases typical? That is, do they represent the average members of the
population to which the generalizations are applied? Or are they extreme cases
that may show what could happen, but not what usually happens? - Are the examples from the time period under discussion, or are they out of date?
Women are commonly stereotyped as reasoning with their hearts rather than
their heads—an overgeneralization that may have some basis in fact. Studies of
women’s patterns of thinking show the importance of emotion in their reasoning
process.^34 Although obviously different from “dispassionate investigation,”
emotions complement logic and intertwine with rational proofs. Feelings are not
inferior to reason, and they are not something women must “overcome” in order
to think clearly. Instead, emotions can be a source of knowledge, and “truth” or
“knowledge” without emotion is distorted.^35
In contrast, some scholars discount fundamental differences between genders.
They say that using evidence, linear thinking, and deductive logic are not inherently
masculine, and both men and women reason this way. Furthermore, intuitive and
emotional arguments are not inherently feminine; men often reason through
experiences, emotions, and empathy.^36 For example, a university^37 study of male and
female scientists found no major differences in use of inductive, deductive, or causal
reasoning processes. However, they discovered that, given an unexpected finding,
men tended to assume they knew the cause, whereas women tracked it down.
Whatever differences there may be, the “difference must be viewed as a
resource for—not an impediment to—meaningful dialogue.”^38Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
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