ABSTRACT
A world of what tends to be accords with the existence of a science that is reliable and yet fallible. Inductive claims, concerning what will tend to happen, based on what has been observed as tending to happen, have a place within this realist theory of science. A good inductive inference, especially one backed up by a range of other methods and evidence, will tend to get it right. But if that insecurity matches accurately the tendential nature of the world, then it can hardly be a criticism of induction. Instead of individual powers, singularly directed towards their manifestations, the framework of laws is distinctive for its generality of scope. The claim should be taken as an attribution of a tendential nature rather than a contrived absolute regularity. For the deductive-nomological method to work, for example, it requires a premise of general scope – the scientific theory – that allows people to draw the inferences.
