When I was in grammar school, somewhere around the middle of the last century, I was taught that science follows an inductive method.

Using the inductive process a scientist or researcher would move from the observation of a number of instances to a general characterisation of the observations in question.

Induction can be used to construct theoretical statements about the world based on observations of phenomena occurring in the world.

The problem is that this process doesn't ensure that any inference made from such observations is true and it's limited to only the observations made.

There is no assurance that the next observation would not give the lie to one's general characterisation.

According to Robert Proctor and E.J. Capaldi, in their book, 'Why Science Matters', because of this, many people rely upon deduction, which is more the philosopher's process.

Deduction allows a person to arrive at specific predictions as derived from general premises.

This is a process that depends on logic. If one accepts that all islands are surrounded by water, then Bermuda is an island, because Bermuda is surrounded by water.

The problem with deduction is that it is truth conserving; whatever is in the premise can be preserved through reasoning, but such a process does not really augment our knowledge of the world.

The best one can attain with deduction is to preserve what is already known.

Abduction is a process that seems more useful to conducting research and to the obtaining of new knowledge, and it is a process used commonly by people for a variety of reasons.

It consists in surveying a number of phenomena, observing their pattern, and forming an explanatory or causal hypothesis.

Induction is not involved because the observations may be fewer and do not address shared properties; they address their cause.

Deduction is not involved because the generalisation is not derived from the phenomena it applies to and is an explanation of them.

Since many people utilise analogy in forming abductions, science at that point resembles poetry, or art.

For example, Rutherford and Bhor asserted that the structure of the atom is like the structure of the solar system.

In saying this, they compared these things and suggested a similarity of pattern. They grasped the whole at first and then reasoned to its parts.

This is like saying: "We are like blades of grass that sprout up one day but wither in the afternoon sun and blow away with the next day's breeze."

That is an artistic metaphor, or analogy, used to not merely describe, but also to explain our limited grasp in spite of our expansive reach.

It encapsulates the whole of human life and gives existential context for its individual parts.

I once told a couple doing marriage therapy that they were like two people wandering around in a maze; they could not see over the top of it, thus could not really find their way out, and everything seemed to tower over them, making them feel small and overwhelmed.

They could not find their way out of their routine struggle, because their perspective was limited to what they could see right in front of them, at the ground level.

It was that small and very subjective view of what was going on that hindered them.

From this abduction, an analogical statement about one of the causes for their stuckness, alternatives could be suggested, imagined, and intuitively understood.

People, when they see with a different perspective, when they become aware of their stuckness, usually create solutions that fit their lives best.

People are the experts on their own lives; a professional may have expertise in terms of process, and a psychologist is hopefully competent with regard to some established method of conducting psychotherapy, but no professional can possibly fathom all the individual elements and all the history, all the complex textures of a current situation, sufficient to make explicit and detailed decisions for a client.

That is why, during the informed consent phase of therapy, right at the beginning of the process, I tell people that I cannot predict what the actual outcome of therapy with me might be, but I feel very confident to help people discover a way of proceeding that makes sense to them.

Often, these people put together the next steps in their personal journeys quite apart from me, "out there" where "real life" takes place, instead of inside the therapy session itself.

When that happens, I often have the privilege of seeing such positive change take place, and that is rewarding, because, like a gardener who turns the soil and waters the plants, I've had something to do with growth that came from beyond me alone.