Word Finder - inference

definition

The act or process of inferring by deduction or induction.

definition

That which is inferred; a truth or proposition drawn from another which is admitted or supposed to be true; a conclusion; a deduction.

The inference was insulting.

The teacher asked the students to draw an inference based on the clues given in the storybook.

The pre-existence of souls is another inference from the immutability of God.

This is, however, very doubtful, and an entirely different inference is possible.

Skylar made an inference about what was in the wrapped box under the Christmas tree after picking it up to feel the weight.

This argument from a pure assumption is a confusion of sense and inference.

The deepest problem of logic is the relation of sense and inference.

The solution of the dilemma is a matter of inference.

The teacher asked the students to draw an inference based on theclues given in the storybook.

After observing how the man and woman treated each other, she made an inference that they were married.

Hence also induction is a real process, because, when we know that this individual magnet attracts iron, we are very far from knowing that all alike do so similarly; and the question of inductive logic, how we get from some similars to all similars, remains, as before, a difficulty, but not to be solved by the fallacy that inference is identification.

He found that pressure increases luminosity, so that hydrogen, for example, the flame of which in normal circumstances gives no light, burns with a luminous flame under a pressure of ten or twenty atmospheres, and the inference he drew was that the presence of solid particles is not the only factor that determines the light-giving power of a flame.

It was hardly possible that he could survive such treatment; the natural inference is that he was not intended to survive it.

Sometimes it will be found that free will is asserted as an assured fact, as a datum, and so as a ground of inference to God.

No distinction is more vital in the logic of inference in general and of scientific inference in particular; and yet none has been so little understood, because, though analysis is the more usual order of discovery, synthesis is that of instruction, and therefore, by becoming more familiar, tends to replace and obscure the previous analysis.

Since his writings are read more easily than Chaucer's, the inference is plain - that he was more effectual as a maker of our present English.

Flint that while materialism requires sensationalist psychology, yet the psychology in question allows no valid inference to matter, and therefore destroys materialism.

It is an obvious inference that if a small quantity of a substance can affect the development of an entire organ it probably acts after the manner of an enzyme.

In later times both the orthodox and the Arians appealed to his teaching, both with a certain plausibility; but the inference of Arius, that an imparted divinity must be divinity in the second degree, Origen did not draw.

The common tenet of the whole school is that without inference we immediately perceive the external world, at all events as a resisting something external to our organism.

The new phrase indicates that we are to approach the thought of God through a study of religious beliefs phy of and practices; " theism " tended to make God a purely scientific inference from the facts of nature.

It is commonly supposed that by jactus lapidum Fitzstephen meant the game of bowls, but though it is possible that round stones may sometimes have been employed in an early variety of the game - and there is a record of iron bowls being used, though at a much later date, on festive occasions at Nairn, - nevertheless the inference seems unwarranted.

They incline to the Design Argument and Analogy - to the Cosmological argument (with other elements in a subordinate place) and proof by inference - to the Ontological argument.

The inference seemed unwarrantable.

David Hume, following up Berkeley's leading suggestion, pointed out that the inference to God is as precarious as the inference to matter, and that the assertion of a continuous or immaterial mind in man also goes beyond the immediate facts.

The leader in speculative philosophy is Immanuel Kant, though he includes many agnostic elements, and draws the inference (which some things in the letter of Butler might seem to warrant) that the essence of Christianity is an ethical theism.

As far as pure science goes, the inference from science in favour of materialism has visibly lost much of its plausibility, and Protestant apologists would probably be prepared to accept in advance all verified discoveries as belonging to a different region from that of faith.

This, however, is rather a matter of inference from the cessation of all mention of them in local records than from any definite evidence of their extirpation.

In doctrine the church has been from the first contentious for believers' baptism, holding that nowhere in the New Testament can be found any authority even by inference, precept or example for the baptism of infants.

At least this seems a fair inference from Eurip. Alc., 75, 76, 101 -104.

The pre-existence of souls is another inference from the immutability of God, although Origen also deduced it from the nature of the soul, which as a spiritual potency must be eternal.

The inference was inevitable that, as German affairs were about to be profitably exploited by France in the bargains then beginning at Rastatt, she must throw her chief energies into the Egyptian expedition.

If in this sentence he scarcely does justice to the powers of logical inference and inductive reasoning displayed in much of his work, it remains true that blind experiment - heating a substance, or treating it with some reagent, to see what would happen - was his characteristic method of inquiry.

An immediate inference was that the Daltonian " atom " must have parts which enter into combination with parts of other atoms; in other words, there must exist two orders of particles, viz.

Thus the alternative use of cope or chasuble (vestment) is allowed at the celebration of Holy Communion - an obvious compromise; of the amice, girdle (cingulum), maniple and stole there is not a word, 2 and the inference to be drawn is that these were now disused.

Thus, if any inference as to date can be drawn from ch.

There can be little doubt, however, that inference by man differs from that of the brute creation in respect of self-consciousness, and, though there can be no doubt that some animals dream, it is difficult to find evidenc 2 for the presence of ideal images in the minds of ..

Even after interviewing multiple people, the detective could not make an inference about who could be a suspect.

In the case of any crop year, if the relations which are suggested as indicating the "bulling" work of "futures" usually corresponded with "spot" prices being below the normal price of the crop year, or of what was left of the crop year, while the relations which are suggested to indicate the "bearing" work of "futures" on the whole corresponded with a relatively abnormal height of "spot," it would be a legitimate inference that "futures" were tending to smooth prices.

Joule also made experiments upon iron wires under tension, and drew the erroneous inference (which has been often quoted as if it were a demonstrated fact) that under a certain critical tension (differing for different specimens of iron but independent of the magnetizing force) magnetization would produce no effect whatever upon the dimensions of the wire.

They were met by the criticism that possibly such a development had taken place; but, as no one could show as a simple fact of observation that it had taken place, nor as a result of legitimate inference that it must have taken place, it was quite as likely that the past and present species of animals and plants had been separately created or individually brought into existence by unknown and inscrutable causes, and (it was held) the truly scientific man would refuse to occupy himself with such fancies, whilst ever continuing to concern himself with the observation and record of indisputable facts.

The fact that in the formation of the reproductive cells of the hybrid generation the material which carries the positive quality is not subdivided so as to give a half-quantity to each reproductive cell, but on the contrary is apparently distributed as an undivided whole to half only of the reproductive cells and not at all to the remainder, is the important inference from Mendel's experiments.

Whether this inference is applicable to other classes of cases than those studied by Mendel and his followers is a question which is still under investigation.

But if its dimensions be much less than the half wave-length, it can only be seen as a whole, and its parts cannot be distinctly separated, although in cases near the border line some inference may be possible, founded upon experience of what appearances are presented in various cases.

Another obvious inference from the necessary imperfection of optical images is the uselessness of attempting anything like an absolute destruction of spherical aberration.

Unfortunately we are reduced to inference and conjecture with regard both to his life and to the extent of his literary activity.

The inference that Lucretius belonged to this class is confirmed by the tone in which he addresses Gaius Memmius, a man of an eminent senatorian family, to whom the poem is dedicated.

As the Welsh word for " bridge " is " pont," and this was taken directly from the Latin, the inference is almost conclusive that the Britons acquired their knowledge of bridges from the Romans.

Looking at the stage of culture which the Britons had probably reached, it would further be a natural inference that there was no such thing as a bridge anywhere in Britain before the Roman occupation; but, if Dion's statement is correct, it may be suggested as a possible explanation that the increased intercourse with Gaul during the hundred years that - elapsed between Julius Caesar's raids and Claudius Caesar's invasion may have led to the construction of a bridge of some kind across the Thames at this point, through the influence and under the guidance of Roman traders and engineers.

The presence of these inscriptions may perhaps lead to the inference that the vase was made in Sicily, but by Byzantine workmen.