Abductive reasoning

About: Abductive reasoning is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1917 publications have been published within this topic receiving 44645 citations. The topic is also known as: abduction & abductive inference.

Embodied Anomaly Resolution in Molecular Genetics : A Case Study of RNAi

Abstract: Scientific anomalies are observations and facts that contradict current scientific theories and they are instrumental in scientific theory change. Philosophers of science have approached scientific theory change from different perspectives as Darden (Theory change in science: Strategies from Mendelian genetics, 1991) observes: Lakatos (In: Lakatos, Musgrave (eds) Criticism and the growth of knowledge, 1970) approaches it as a progressive “research programmes” consisting of incremental improvements (“monster barring” in Lakatos, Proofs and refutations: The logic of mathematical discovery, 1976), Kuhn (The structure of scientific revolutions, 1996) observes that changes in “paradigms” are instigated by a crisis from some anomaly, and Hanson (In: Feigl, Maxwell (eds) Current issues in the philosophy of science, 1961) proposes that discovery does not begin with hypothesis but with some “problematic phenomena requiring explanation”. Even though anomalies are important in all of these approaches to scientific theory change, there have been only few investigations into the specific role anomalies play in scientific theory change. Furthermore, much of these approaches focus on the theories themselves and not on how the scientists and their experiments bring about scientific change (Gooding, Experiment and the making of meaning: Human agency in scientific observation and experiment, 1990). To address these issues, this paper approaches scientific anomaly resolution from a meaning construction point of view. Conceptual integration theory (Fauconnier and Turner, Cogn Sci 22:133–187, 1996; The way we think: Conceptual blending and mind’s hidden complexities, 2002) from cognitive linguistics describes how one constructs meaning from various stimuli, such as text and diagrams, through conceptual integration or blending. The conceptual integration networks that describe the conceptual integration process characterize cognition that occurs unconsciously during meaning construction. These same networks are used to describe some of the cognition while resolving an anomaly in molecular genetics called RNA interference (RNAi) in a case study. The RNAi case study is a cognitive-historical reconstruction (Nersessian, In: Giere (ed) Cognitive models of science, 1992) that reconstructs how the RNAi anomaly was resolved. This reconstruction traces four relevant molecular genetics publications in describing the cognition necessary in accounting for how RNAi was resolved through strategies (Darden 1991), abductive reasoning (Peirce, In: Hartshorne, Weiss (eds) Collected papers, 1958), and experimental reasoning (Gooding 1990). The results of the case study show that experiments play a crucial role in formulating an explanation of the RNAi anomaly and the integration networks describe the experiments’ role. Furthermore, these results suggest that RNAi anomaly resolution is embodied. It is embodied in a sense that cognition described in the cognitive-historical reconstruction is experientially based.

Distributed abductive reasoning with constraints

Abstract: Abductive inference has many known applications in multiagent systems including planning, scheduling, policy analysis and sensing data interpretation. However, most abductive frameworks rely on a centrally executed proof procedure whereas many of the application problems are distributed by nature. Confidentiality and communication overhead concerns often preclude agents' knowledge from being centralised. We present in this paper a distributed abductive reasoning framework with a flexible and extensible proof procedure that permits collaborative abductive reasoning between agents over decentralised knowledge. The proof procedure is sound and complete upon termination, and can perform concurrent computation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first distributed abductive system that can compute non-ground conditional proofs and handle arithmetic constraints.

Young children’s early deductive reasoning in number: A dialogic and linguistic approach

Abstract: In this paper I present an examination of three six year-old children’s interaction with a task intended to encourage reasoning and collaboration in number. A case is made for the importance of deductive reasoning in supporting inductive reasoning and for the potential of hypothetical deductive reasoning in supporting concept reification in early number. The children’s discourse is analysed using a framework based on opinion/belief, plausibility and deductive reasoning schema in relation to the functional use of actuality and modality linguistic terms. The analysis suggests that the children were able to transition to deductive reasoning and this was reflected in their discourse through a shift to modality, and that this shift suggested a sense of authority by the children in validating their thinking.

The abductive approach to synthetic autonomous reasoning

Abstract: Abductive inference, as defined by Charles S. Peirce, involves (1) observation of a surprising fact, (2) formulating (guessing) a proposition which, if true, would explain this fact as a matter of course, (3) and provisional acceptance of the proposition as true, (4) leading to its being taken as a premise for subsequent deduction, the consequences of which will then be related to further observations via induction--surprises from which can then trigger new abductive inferences, and so forth. Peirce limited this process to human reasoning because he viewed thought as a semiosis (flow of signs) continuous between the human mind and the world, such that (1) the human subject is in thought, as opposed to thought being in the subject, and that (2) there is an intrinsic ability of human beings to “guess right” as a consequence of this continuity of mind and world. The challenge posed by this view of thinking is that, unlike a human subject, any vehicle for autonomous reasoning is a newly created object that is separate from the world. It cannot be what Martin Heidegger termed a “being-in-the-world” because of the artificial separation of its thought from the world viewed as semiosis.