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A. A.'s avatar

I am a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes novels. Even as a modern scientist or criminalist one can find a lot of great ideas and wisdom in them (and also a lot of rubbish, of course). Thanks for pointing out that the frequent usage of the word 'deduction' in the novels is inaccurate at times. I just want to add that Holmes uses a variety of logical arguments, of which some are in fact deductions, others inductions, and some abductions. Some would argue that the latter (abduction: inference to the best explanation) is the most important in Holmes logical reasoning. Umberto Eco (and a few others) wrote a book about that specific topic. Thanks for making Holmes a topic on your blog; I think that these novels still have a lot to offer.

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Bo Abrahamsen's avatar

Thank you for covering the ground on induction and deduction, these are confusing terms to many of us I think. Probably because they were pretty weirdly chosen and hint at the opposite of what they are. Deduce sounds like coming at something from a set of facts and induction is like you get in there by intuition, instinct and hypothesis. Probably best to not try to fit the terms into etymology as this may very likely cause upset and regret.

It was lovely to have Gandhi back, he sounds spot on as regards the issues of the day. Will you be going over motive and opportunity in the next pieces? And in real life do we think methods of solving crime can be divided neatly into deduction and induction? After all I might accuse you of working to find circumstances specifically demonstrating that the husband killed his wife, ie working from a hypothesis and not a know fact. But then you could argue you're simply working from the known fact that most murderers are close family members and partners. I can see it would take some scones and builder tea to sort that out. Thank you again and keep up the good work.

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