Deduction, Induction, Abduction, and You

The etymological source of the word root "duc" comes from the Latin verb "dūcere," meaning "to lead,” as in "duke." And for purposes of this blogpost, "duc" is the root of three major processes that lead us in our quests to make sense of ourselves and our world.

Deduction is like a logic machine. It starts with a general rule or principle, then applies it to a specific case to draw a certain conclusion. It’s the kind of reasoning that feels airtight—if your premises are true, your conclusion must be true. Imagine you know the rule: “All apples are fruits.” Then you’re told: “Granny Smith is an apple.” You conclude: “Granny Smith is a fruit.”
That’s deduction—simple, neat, and reliable. Let’s say you’re job hunting, and the company clearly says: “We only hire people with a college degree.” You have a degree. Based on that rule, you confidently apply, knowing you meet that requirement. Deductive reasoning helped you aim for the right target. But if you assume the rule is true without checking, you can get burned. Like thinking: “This restaurant always has great food.” Then you show up, order something new, and it’s awful. If your general rule was based on limited experience, your deduction fails—not because deduction itself is flawed, but because your starting rule wasn’t solid.

Induction is the opposite of deduction,  starting with specific observations and trying to fabricate a general rule. It’s how we learn from experience: we notice patterns and form expectations.  An induction is probable, not guaranteed.  You notice that every time you drink coffee after 4 PM, you sleep badly. So, you form a general rule: “Coffee late in the day keeps me up.” That’s induction. It might be true. But maybe you just had stressful days when you happened to drink coffee.  You try a few different techniques for studying—flashcards, highlighting, re-reading—and notice that flashcards consistently help you remember more. So, you start using them regularly. That’s inductive reasoning paying off—spotting what works and turning it into a habit. You meet three people from a certain city who are rude and conclude, “People from that city are jerks.” That’s a classic bad induction—jumping to a general rule from too little evidence. Stereotypes and prejudices often come from lazy or biased inductive reasoning.

Although everyone reading this blog post undoubtedly is familiar with deduction and induction, abduction is  not so widely known. It’s reasoning to the best explanation based on incomplete information—what we do when we don’t have all the facts, but still need to figure something out. We are engaging in detective work based on what we know or think we know.  You walk into your kitchen and see the cookie jar open and crumbs on the floor. You didn’t see anyone do it, but your kid’s face is suspiciously chocolatey. You guess: “She probably took the cookies.” That’s abduction.  If you’re on a date, and the other person keeps checking their watch, not making eye contact, and giving one-word answers, you figure “They’re probably not that into this.” You’re guess is reasonable.  On the other hand, you see your coworker whispering to your boss, later are called in for a meeting and assume, “They were talking behind my back.” Perhaps, but maybe they were discussing an entirely different topic. Abduction can lead to misunderstandings when our guess—however reasonable—is just flat-out wrong.

To summarize,

• Deduction helps when the rules are clear—legal contracts, technical systems, or policies. But if your assumptions are off, even perfect logic leads you astray.
• Induction is powerful for learning from experience—habits, relationships, business trends. But it’s vulnerable to bias and too-small samples.
• Abduction is how we make quick calls—especially under uncertainty. It’s intuitive, creative, and often useful—but it’s the easiest to get wrong.

The trick in everyday life is knowing which kind of reasoning you’re using—and whether it is the right tool for the job.

Deduction, induction and abduction often “lead” us astray, when we are engaged in human relationships. In fact, I suggest that conflict, disappointment, and misunderstanding in human relationships frequently isn’t because people are illogical, but because they’re using the wrong kind of logic, or using it too quickly without checking themselves.

So, let’s see how deduction, induction, and abduction errors can undermine relationships, and—more important—how we can avoid them.

Deduction Mistakes: “I know the rule, so I must be right.”

You think: “If someone cares about me, they’ll always remember my birthday. My partner forgot, so they must not care.” To minimize deduction errors: Question your rules. Ask: Is this rule always true? Or is it just what I expect? Talk, don’t assume. Just because something logically follows in your head doesn’t mean the other person sees it that way. Allow for exceptions. Even true rules have outliers—forgetting a birthday might mean stress, not rejection.

Induction Mistakes: “This keeps happening, so that must mean something big.”

You notice that your friend has canceled plans twice in the past month. You start thinking: “They’re unreliable. I can’t count on them anymore.” That’s an inductive leap—from a couple of events to a general judgment. To minimize induction errors: Check your sample size. Are two canceled plans enough to label someone? Consider context. Are they going through something? Is this new behavior or a long-term pattern? Stay curious. Instead of forming a conclusion too fast, ask: “Is there something going on that’s making it hard for them to follow through?”

Abduction Mistakes: “I don’t have the whole story, but I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on.”

Your partner is quiet at dinner. You think: “They’re mad at me. I must’ve done something wrong.” That’s an abductive guess—a best explanation based on limited data. To minimize induction errors: Recognize your uncertainty. Just because something seems like the best explanation doesn’t mean it is. Pause the narrative. When you find yourself building a story in your head, label it as just that—a story. Ask instead of assume. Try: “Hey, you seem quiet—are you okay?” rather than deciding for them.

To conclude, “dūcere” might be at the “root” of many of your problems.  Try to be cognizant of where you are leading yourself in the decisions that you make and in the human relationships in which you engage.  And, of course,  consider whether the people with whom you interact might be better or worse in deducing, inducing, and abducing than you are.

Do You Care Enough? Too Much?

Someone sees another suffering and seems to feel their pain.  An onlooker might, therefore, conclude the apparent empathizer has reacted from pure moral and humanitarian concern.  Why else? 

Well, some psychologists do not automatically default to that moral and/or  humanitarian explanation.  In fact, given the widespread public recognition of “virtue signaling” many non-psychologists, also, might be empathy-skeptical. Regardless of the interpretation of the purposes of empathic behavior, we all, at least, can accept that empathy results in uniformly positive outcomes. Really? Well…  We will address that soon.

Let’s begin with some contextual information. First, a couple definitions.   The  Miriam-Webster. dictionary definition of empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.”  So, the essential elements are: understanding, awareness, sensitivity, and experiencing. Social scientists also speak of “altruistic empathy,” regarded as a selfless concern for the well-being of others, often at the expense of the individual’s own interests.

I choose in this blog to add and focus on “suicidal empathy,” a condition in which one feels others’ pain so deeply that it actually harms the empathizer. Think of someone who can’t watch the news without crying, who gives away too much of themselves—time, money, emotional energy—until they’re completely drained. At least on the surface, they’re not doing it for praise or reward. They just can’t not care, even when it costs them their own well-being. Why might someone behave at that suicidal level?

Under conditions of suicidal empathy, I don’t just mean feeling sad when a friend is struggling—I mean feeling so much of someone else's pain that it becomes overwhelming. The empathizer is so emotionally tied to another person’s suffering that they start to lose themselves, even to the point of risking their own mental health, safety, or will to live. Again, I ask “why would someone do this, let someone else's pain drag them down that far?” Well, a few psychological hypotheses, of varying levels of reasonableness, have been proposed to explain it.

First, the empathizer is just wired to feel everything—deeply. Some people are said to be naturally extremely empathetic. They don’t just understand how someone feels—they feel it too. It’s like their emotional antenna is always turned all the way up. If someone they know about is suffering, they might feel it just as much, or even more. It's not a choice—supposedly it’s how they're built. And without strong emotional boundaries, it can become suffocating.

Second, they don’t know where others end and they begin. People who grew up with blurred emotional lines—maybe in families where they had to take care of everyone else’s feelings—can carry that into adulthood. They feel responsible for other people’s pain, like it’s their job to fix it or absorb it. Letting someone else suffer feels wrong, almost like a personal failure. So, they dive into that suffering without thinking of the cost to themselves.

Third, they’ve been through trauma, and this feels familiar.  For some, intense empathy is a kind of echo from their past. If someone’s been through trauma—especially as a child—they might be drawn to people who are also hurting. Helping others becomes a way to process their own pain, even if it’s not conscious. But sometimes it crosses a line and becomes a reenactment—they end up drowning in someone else’s trauma because it mirrors their own.

Fourth, they don’t feel like they matter unless they’re helping. People with low self-worth might believe their only value comes from being useful or self-sacrificing. They might not even realize they think this way, but deep down there’s a voice saying, You’re only lovable when you’re giving everything you have—even if it destroys you. They tie their identity to being the one who always cares, always helps, always puts others first—even if it’s killing them inside.

Fifth, they believe suffering is the right thing to do. Some people have this moral or idealistic belief that if someone else is in pain, they should be in pain too. Anything less feels selfish. So instead of supporting someone from a place of strength, they collapse under the weight of that person’s suffering. They might think, If I don’t feel this pain too, what kind of person am I?

Sixth, they’re just burned out. This happens a lot with caregivers—nurses, therapists, social workers, even people who are always the emotional rock in their families. They’re exposed to so much suffering, day after day, that eventually they just can’t take it anymore. The empathy that used to fuel them starts to drain them. And when that pain keeps piling up with no break, some people fall into despair or even suicidal thoughts. It’s not because they don’t care—it’s because they’ve cared too much, for too long, without taking care of themselves.

Last, they're afraid to be left alone. Sometimes, people hold on to someone else’s pain because it keeps them connected. Maybe they’re scared that if they stop being the one who "feels everything," they’ll be abandoned or forgotten. So, they keep sacrificing their own well-being just to stay close, even if that closeness is built on shared suffering.

Just as individuals can suffer from suicidal empathy, so can countries. In that case, social  policies are guided by intense emotional responses without adequate boundaries that lead to unintended negative outcomes. Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe offers a compelling critique that aligns closely with the concept of suicidal empathy at the national level. He argues that Western Europe's response to mass immigration is driven more by guilt and emotional reflex than by rational self-interest or cultural preservation.

Murray contends that European societies have lost confidence in their own values and traditions, leading to policies that prioritize compassion over cohesion. He observes that this overcorrection stems from a desire to atone for historical wrongs, resulting in a form of empathy that neglects the practical implications of large-scale immigration. In his book, Murray notes: “To speak for the people of Europe was to be on the side of the devil. And all the time there existed that strange assumption that Europe was simply letting one more person into the room. Whether that person was genuinely about to be killed in the corridor became immaterial. If he was cold, poor, or just worse off there than the people inside the room, he too had the right to come in.” This quote illustrates Murray's concern that European nations, driven by an unbounded empathy, have adopted immigration policies without fully considering the long-term societal impacts.

From an evolutionary psychology perspective, empathy evolved to strengthen in-group bonds and promote cooperative behavior within communities. However, when empathy extends beyond sustainable limits—favoring out-groups at the expense of the in-group—it can undermine social cohesion and threaten the survival of the group.

Murray's analysis suggests that Western Europe's current trajectory, influenced by a form of suicidal empathy, may lead to cultural dilution and societal fragmentation. He warns that without a recalibration of empathy—balancing compassion with pragmatism—European societies risk eroding the very foundations that have historically sustained them.  To my knowledge, no one of any standing has addressed suicidal American empathy to the level that Murray has.  Perhaps it’s time to do so.

Reference:

Murray, Douglas (2018). The Strange Death of Europe. Murray, Douglas: Books. Bloomsbury USA.

Museum Machinations

When you walk into a science museum in Canada, you might expect to see the usual exhibits: dinosaurs, space exploration, maybe a section on the human body. But in many of these museums—especially in the last decade or so—you’ll also come across exhibits that highlight indigenous knowledge systems. They supposedly are included to “integrate indigenous science” alongside Western science.

Take the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa or the Science North Centre in Sudbury as examples. These places now go beyond just displaying indigenous artifacts in a glass case with a label. Instead, they  tell fuller stories that indigenous peoples have told  for hundreds of years. And, importantly, the museums are calling it, “science”. Let’s say there’s an exhibit on animal migration or weather patterns. Western science might show satellite images or data from GPS collars on caribou. Right next to that, you might see a quote or video from an Inuit elder explaining how the animals' migration can be predicted by the thickness of sea ice or the behavior of birds. The display might even note that these traditional observations—passed orally over generations—have proven reliable and are now being used to complement Western research in areas like climate change.

Similarly, in botany exhibits, you'll see how indigenous knowledge of plant medicine is featured—not as folklore or superstition, but as a parallel system of empirical, research-based science. For example, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people’s use of white cedar for respiratory issues is sometimes included in exhibits not just as a cultural note, but claimed to be reliable bioactive compounds.

The museums are moving away from terms like "myth" or "primitive beliefs." Instead, they use phrases like "indigenous knowledge systems," "traditional ecological knowledge," or "indigenous science." These shifts claim that while the methods and metaphors may differ from Western science, the goals—observation, prediction, and explanation of the natural world—are fundamentally scientific.

The rationalizing museum official assertion likely will be to describe their policy as an attempt to “decolonize science communication”. In other words, they are motivated to change the long-standing tendency to treat Western science as the “gold standard” for knowing the world. By incorporating “indigenous science “respectfully and on equal footing, they  seek to “broaden the public’s understanding of what science can be”.

Occasionally there are debates about whether some beliefs—such as spiritual interpretations of nature—fit into the category of science. But museums are increasingly comfortable with refusing to accept those arguments. Accordingly, museum visitors might see one exhibit showing  a geological explanation of how a mountain formed, and right next to it, an indigenous story that explains the mountain’s origin in cultural and spiritual terms. Whether intended or not, the juxtaposition implies that the “science” museum is not fully committed to the scientific method—that indigenous beliefs have equal standing.

In short, Canadian science museums are treating  indigenous knowledge not as something “other” or “less,” but as a legitimate, tested, and deeply rooted form of science.  In my opinion, this Canadian “science” approach is grossly flawed.  It is perfectly appropriate, even laudable, to respect and inquire about indigenous myths and traditions.  But equating them with science is both absurd and intellectually dishonest. Science is much more than an artifact and/or longstanding belief.  Above all, science is a continually recursive process in which ideas are proposed, tested, challenged, retested, and refined. 

I am not religious and firmly “believe” the basic theory of evolution. The belief is firmly rooted in knowing  that the theory has been tested in thousands of rigorously conducted scientific studies.  However, if compelling evidence is discovered that debunks evolution, I am ready, willing, and able to revise my evolution beliefs.  

Speaking of evolution and returning to the Canadian museum approach, I have a question:  Do their museums have Creationist explanations and displays in the evolution section?  To repeat, I am not religious and I do not believe in Creationism.  However, there is a kind of Creationism belief system known as "theistic evolution".  That perspective generally acknowledges the scientific validity of evolution while simultaneously suggesting that God initiated and guided the evolutionary process, possibly including the introduction of souls into humans.  Most notably, Francis Collins, a highly respected figure in both scientific and religious circles is a prominent proponent of theistic evolution.  He was a leading professional in the field of genetics and director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Collins  has written extensively on the compatibility of science and faith, advocating for a view that God created the universe and used the process of evolution to bring about life.

If you ask Canadian museum leaders why Creationism is not worthy of inclusion in their collections, the reply quite likely will be some thinly veiled version of “Creationism is pseudoscience advocated by ignorant, science-denying, right-wing zealots”.  As to the museum “indigenous science “ that they do include, I would ask three questions:  1. What is your definition of science?  2. Specifically  explain the criteria you use to evaluate the scientific bona fides  of each indigenous science exhibit.  3. Who is/are the scientist(s) responsible for the science that you do “advertise” and endorse?

This blog, then, suggests that we never should blindly accept someone else's definition of science. When we do, we allow them to make intimidating incriminations of "You're not following the science" whenever we disagree.  We always need to know what is the science presented, who has produced it, and what is its purpose.

Human Relationships Versus Objective Data

Let’s say you’ve done your homework. You’ve read the reports, double-checked the sources, even made a snazzy little chart with color-coded bars and everything. You're armed with solid, objective data—cold, hard, undeniable truth. Then you share it with your sister, best friend, or partner…And they respond with a concerned expression and say, “Yeah, but I read something different, and honestly, I just don’t think that’s true.” Suddenly, your well-researched truth feels like it just bounced off a brick wall of emotional loyalty. 

What just happened? Welcome to the tug-of-war between objective data and contradictory information delivered by someone close to you—a psychological and social battlefield where logic often finds itself outmaneuvered by trust, intimacy, and shared identity.

Objective data is persuasive because it’s supposed to be impartial. Numbers don’t lie. If 97% of climate scientists agree on global warming, or if randomized controlled trials show a medication works, we expect people to believe it. Data gives the illusion of authority, precision, and universality. It says, “This isn’t my opinion—it’s the truth.” And when people are open to it, that can be powerful. Good data can change minds, shift policy, and spark innovation. But here's the catch: Data doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lands in the messy terrain of human emotion, values, culture, and—most potently—relationships.

Now imagine someone you trust deeply—someone you share holidays, heartbreaks, and inside jokes with—tells you something that goes against what the data says. Even if what they say is vague, anecdotal, or factually wrong… you might feel more inclined to believe them. Why?

Because their voice doesn’t come alone. It’s wrapped in emotional history. It speaks in a language of shared understanding and loyalty. That person isn't just giving you a different perspective—they’re sending a social signal: “If you believe this, you're with me.” And humans are wired for being with. Evolutionarily, tribal belonging often mattered more than objective truth. The tribe protected you. The truth didn’t.

Think about it: If your best friend says, “I don’t trust that vaccine—it just came out too fast,” they’re not publishing a medical paper. They’re expressing fear, maybe shaped by a tangle of social media, stress, and personal stories. Telling them, “Actually, here’s the CDC’s Phase III trial data…” might be correct. But it might also feel—to them—like you’re rejecting them, not just their point. And in return, their rejection of your facts might feel like they’re ignoring your intelligence. This is how good people talk past each other.

So, Who Wins? In pure logic? Objective data. Every time. But in real life? The winner is often the person you care about more than the facts. That’s not because people are dumb. It’s because we are social. We don’t just evaluate truth in our heads—we weigh it with our hearts.

What do we do? We start by recognizing that persuasion isn't just about truth—it's about trust. If you want someone to believe good data, you might need to become the familiar voice. Share facts gently, wrapped in empathy, not superiority. Make it safe for someone to listen without feeling betrayed. And if someone you love believes something untrue, resist the urge to steamroll them with charts. Instead, start with connection. Find shared values. Be curious. Show that you care more about them than about winning the argument. Because sometimes, the only thing more persuasive than truth… is love that listens.

Have you ever changed your mind because of someone close to you—even if the facts weren’t on their side? Or vice versa? Regardless of whether you are the one who’s trying to change someone’s mind, or they’re trying to change yours, I remind you now of the song I keep on singing about contextualism. To briefly recap: Contextualism is the idea that thoughts, feelings, behaviors, actions, and experiences don’t have a single, universal meaning. Instead, their meaning depends on the external situation and your internal situation. Therefore, before you get into a shouting match with someone with whom you disagree, decide whether the context is suitable for rational reconciliation. If it isn’t. tactfully withdraw from the situation. and decide whether you want to reengage at a more opportune time or never.