Dear Andy,
You talk about the differences between inductive and abductive
reasoning (see SNIP).
>>>>>SNIP
The key difference between the natural sciences and design synthesis is
the difference between inductive and abductive reasoning. That's a
comparison that one can intellectually grapple with and each side can
state, analyse and value (if they're open enough to it). Normally the
science/design difference is stated as reason versus "mojo" * by both
designers and non-designers. That's not and apples to apples comparison
and it's also one deeply damaging to design. Historians and
archeologists, to mention just two areas with established methdologies,
both use abductive reasoning to work with incomplete data and draw "best
guess" conclusions. In both cases these can also be prototyped and
tested, which is what design does, of course.
>>>>>>>
I might recommend that there are many ways of "ducting"(drawing as in
pulling or attracting). We have, of course, DE-ductive logic. (C. S.
Peirce generated abductive logics as a combination of deductive and
inductive processes.) To this list I'd add PRO-ductive, SUB-ductive
(proper name for SE-ductive), E-ductive, CON-ductive. For a beginning of
this kind of extension of ways of ducting, see my chapter, "On Ducts and
Design", Questions, Hypotheses and Conjectures, Eds. Rosan Chow,
Wolfgang Jonas, Gesche Joost, 2010, Design Research Network.
I agree that practice is research and theory and I would add that
theory is practice and research and research is practice and theory.
cheers
keith
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