(3) Correlations on which predictions are based are the product of induction, and inductive conclusions, in sociology as elsewhere, are based on a decision (Neurath 1931b/1973, 407).
Even granting an observational basis, Hume had already pointed out that one could not argue for inductive conclusions without begging the question by presuming the success of the inductive method.
However in order to arrive at justified inductive conclusions we cannot simply place our confidence in any of the known principles of probability theory (such as those we employ in reasoning with regard to artificial situations with bags containing red and white balls, and the like): we need some further premise.
The argument form is inductive; the conclusion is not guaranteed to follow from the premises.
All our inductive inferences our "conclusions from experience"—are founded on the supposition that the course of nature is sufficiently uniform so that the future will be conformable to the past (EHU 4.21; SBN 37 38): "For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past ….
It is first important to keep in mind that the conclusion of inductive inference is not an assertion, it is a posit.
The skeptical theist can consistently push CORNEA and the Moorean shift, because she only argues that CORNEA blocks the inductive inference to the conclusion that there is no justification for some evil (which is a case of alleged dynamic support), not that one's all-things-considered attitude toward pointless evil ought to be agnosticism (which would be a case of static support).
In general (but not always), such arguments belong in the category of inductive reasoning, since their conclusions do not follow with certainty but are only supported with varying degrees of strength.
Williams and Stove maintain that while there may be, in Hume's phrase, no "demonstrative arguments to prove" the uniformity of nature, there are good deductive arguments that prove that certain inductive methods yield their conclusions with high probability.
We used thematic analysis and developed a posteriori inductive categories to draw conclusions.
