归纳推理

The scientific method employs two types of logic — inductive and deductive reasoning.

In inductive reasoning, broad generalizations are inferred from several specific observations.

For example, a scientist might observe that one species of butterfly is attracted to red flowers, but not to similar flowers in yellow color.

From this information, they might conclude that butterfly species prefer red flowers.

However, such conclusions may or may not be true because only a sample of instances is observed and recorded. For instance, in the current example, the scientist did not observe every butterfly or every flower.

So, such generalizations derived from inductive reasoning can be used as a basis to formulate a testable, falsifiable hypothesis.