Abduction

Abduction is a way of reasoning, like induction or deduction. It works by eliminating what’s obviously not true, and considering what’s most likely. It is thought process sometimes described as “inference to the best explanation.“

The most succinct description of abduction I could find is from chapter six of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Sign of the Four,” Sherlock Holmes says, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Unlike deduction and induction, abduction doesn’t reason straight from a premise to a conclusion. Instead, it reasons by ruling out possible explanations until you’re left with the most plausible one, given the evidence.

Like induction, abduction doesn’t give us certainty. But it is a really useful way to get through puzzling situations when you don’t have clear evidence from the past to help you out.

For example, doctors use abduction a lot when they’re diagnosing illnesses, and detectives of course use it when piecing together evidence.

Abduction is one of the most common forms of argument, you probably use it often too. The danger of induction is that it only considers the information you have available. That's why detectives and doctors work so hard to reveal more data, so they can draw better conclusions.

- Juliette