How can making inferences be compared to a tree?

Answer 1

An inference is a series of reasoning and deduction based on a factual evidence or knowledge.

Inferences are often made in steps: if x is true, then it follows (reasoning) that y must also be true.

This is a very basic example and it may have flaws, but... Let's say you meet Charles, age 9, living in the USA, who made all A's on his report card, and received an horors award for "Good Student."

We could "infer" that:

• Charles is in regular public school
• Charles is in 4th grade most likely
• Charles has a great teacher
• Charles likes to learn
• Charles achieves, and desires to learn
• Charles must go to a school that values learning

If you notice, the process starts big, like looking at a tree trunk. We start with "Charles is in regular public school". With each inference, we go further and further from "fact" and begin to "branch out" into assumption and opinion as if fact. In the process from big to little, or from focused assumptions to broader assumptions, the process could be compared to drawing branches on a tree, bigger near the base of the information and wispier and less strong as we move to the tips of the branches.

But, inferences aren't necessarily accurate. Instead, they are simply assumptions and ideas each person may construe as "fact".

Let's add more facts to our example. Charles is 9 years old but has been held back 2 years in a row. He has learning difficulties but his teachers have been indifferent; they give him A's because it seems easier than teaching him. His mother fights the teachers and school system to give him a better education, but no one listens. Charles likes the colors on his "award" but emotionally, it makes him feel sad because he knows he earned nothing.

A second set of inferences an outsider could make might be:

• The school district is pitiful and doesn't care
• ALL the teachers are bad teachers
• ALL the teachers give out phony "awards"
• Charles wants to learn
• His mother is quite educated herself, so she wants her child educated properly

Every time we add "facts" then assumptions (should) change. But since humans rely on inferences every day, it may be hard for some people to replace faulty inferences when new facts arise.

Inferences can also be made in science and scholastic areas. Here, inference serves to guide experiments and research. As new "facts" emerge, scientists change their inferences to include the new facts and hypothesize with new inferences on which they construct new experiments or research, gather more facts, make more inferences, and so on.

Other than "like a tree", the process of making inferences can also be like "making an outline", where we take a main point and break it down to smaller points and supporting facts or reasons.