Is Informal reasoning any more reliable than Inductve or Deductive reasoning?


First off there are already two main fallacies with Informal Reasoning. and Post hoc ergo propter hoc and Ad hominem.

The first one literally translated from Latin to English means: after this, therefore on account of this. An example to make this sound clearer is: just because the murder rate in a country goes up after the abolition of capital punishment, it does not necessarily mean that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to murder crimes. It could mean that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to murder crimes but it could also be explained by other reasons such as a rise in poverty levels or an increase in the availability of guns on the market. Therefore we can see that Informal reasoning is already not a very reliable source of information.

Ad hominem translated from Latin to English quite literally means: against the man. It consists of attacking or supporting the person rather than the argument. For example: you make an argument for a world government, and are told by your teacher or parents that you are too young and idealaistic to know and understand what you are talking abou it shows that they aren't taking your argument seriously because you are too young when age doesn't matter. You could be spot on with your argument but they may still say you are too young to understand worldwide politics.

So as we can see Inofrmal Reasoning is just as unreliable as Inductive and Deductive Reasoning.

What is the Difference between Inductive and Deductive Reasoning?


Inductive Reasoning and Deductive Reasoning are two of the three main types of reasoning.

Deductive Reasoning is the reasoning from the general to the particular. An example is:

All metals expand when heated
A is a metal
Therefore A expands when heated

The value of this information is more certain,. However, this information is also a lot vaguer and less informative then Induction.

Inductive reasoning is the complete opposite of Deductive reasoning. It is the reasoning from the particular to the general. An example is:

Metal A expands when heated, as does metal B and C
Therefore, all metals expand when heated.

The value of this information is a lot more informative. However, it is less certain that it is the truth.

Some people may argue, however, that in practice deduction is no more certain than induction. This is because the premises on which deductive reasoning about the world is based must be derived from induction. So maybe inductive reasoning is more reliable than deductive reasoning since it is more informative and equally certain. Unfortunately this is not true as inductive reasoning is no more reliable than deductive reasoning as we make too many generalisations and therefore jump to conclusions with insufficient evidence to back this up. So is there any form of reasoning that is reliable?