Deductive reasoning: From theory to confirmation

Deductive reasoning starts from established facts, then applies logical steps to reach a conclusion. For example, "Bachelors are unmarried men. Jack is unmarried. Therefore, Jack is a bachelor."

Limitations:

• If the premise or the logic applied is flawed, deductive reasoning can lead to the wrong conclusions. For example, "All dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore, all dogs have four legs," is false because injury or species characteristics mean not all animals have four legs.
• It is impractical to use on a daily basis, as it requires a factual premise to start from, which we don't always have access to.
• Building a premise on an outdated hypothesis can lead to the wrong conclusion.