Statement and Reasoning

Statement

A statement is defined as any information which is also a fact and is generally related to any subject.

When making a statement, there is a tone of certainty and confidence that one is not assuming; instead, he says what stands as a fact.

Statements can be true or false, but the tone with which it is said only shows that the speaker is sure of what they are saying, even if it is wrong.

For example, these are factual statements:

• “Cats hate mice.”
• “Dogs love and eat bones a lot.”
• “There are 12 months in a year”.

Looking at the examples above, you will see that they are accurate and are facts. However, despite being statements, some other examples are not valid. These examples of statements are called false statements.

For example, knowing that meat does not contain a seed, one cannot still say they like meat on the ground and that it does not contain a seed. You can like meat because of its taste, savor, or other related reasons but certainly not because meat does not have a seed.

Therefore, this statement, “I like meats because they do not contain seeds,” becomes a false statement.

Reasoning

The reasoning is statements that act as links between evidence and claims or reasons. In other words, Reasoning helps to say or explain why evidence is accurate or relevant in any situation.

It essentially deals with the application of logic. With Reasoning, one tells or explains how evidence relevantly supports his claims.

This evidence could be facts gotten from anywhere; they could be from a text or the internet.

The application of Reasoning to answering questions makes the answer more believable and more transparent. 

Concept of Statement and Reasoning and Differences Between Statement and Reasoning

While there are two kinds of statements, including accurate and false statements, it takes Reasoning to ascertain which statement is true and false.

When a statement is made, Reasoning follows before a conclusion is drawn. Without adding Reasoning to your evidence and reasons, the reader can interpret what you said in whichever way they want.

Like in the example above, saying that one likes meat because it does not contain seeds cannot be true, although it is a statement. It takes Reasoning to conclude that the statement is false.

In other terms, Reasoning can be a set of evaluation processes one engages in making a valid conclusion.

Using the false statement example above, Reasoning will lay out how some evidence supports your claim that the statement is a false one.

Another example where Reasoning plays a role is thus:

In trying to state why excessive cigarette smoking is dangerous to human health, this could be the Reasoning:

EVIDENCE (could be data or facts gotten from a text)

Cigarette smoke is one of the causes of various lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.

Reasoning: If people can minimize the rate of smoking cigarettes, there will be a reduced occurrence of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.

In this example, we have displayed how Reasoning helps to solidify the grounds of the fact or evidence.

Kinds of Reasoning

• Deductive Reasoning.

Deductive Reasoning gives solid evidence to its conclusion.

This type of Reasoning uses specific and accurate premises to reach a specific and accurate conclusion.

In this kind of Reasoning, once the premises are true, the deduction must be valid.

This kind of Reasoning is often applied to both real lives and science.

Mathematically, deductive Reasoning can be illustrated thus: if a is equal to b, and b is equal to c, then a is equal to c.

Examples of Deductive Reasoning

Premise: All precious stones are costly. Diamonds are precious stones.

Conclusion: Diamonds are costly.

Premise: All humans are social beings. You are a human.

Conclusion: You are a social being.

Premise: All living things undergo respiration. Trees are living things.

Conclusion: Trees are living things.

• Invalid Deductive Reasoning

Invalid deductive Reasoning occurs when one overgeneralizes. In this case, the conclusion of the inductive Reasoning becomes wrong.

Examples of invalid deductive Reasoning:

Premise: All men are strong. Frederick is not strong.

Conclusion: Frederick is not a man.

Premise: All children like milk. Little Sarah does not like milk.

Conclusion: Little Sarah is not a child.

• Inductive Reasoning

This type of Reasoning makes a broad generalization from specific information, considering probability, i.e., it leaves room for the fact that the given conclusions may not be accurate.

Examples of inductive Reasoning:

Premise: Water prevents you from being dehydrated. I had extra water bottles with me along the journey, and I did not get dehydrated.

Conclusion: Here, you can give an opinion using inductive Reasoning that I was probably thirsty along the journey and took some water.

Explanation: Your conclusion here might not be accurate as it could be that I did not get dehydrated because I took some water whenever I became thirsty, or I did not get dehydrated because I never became thirsty at all.

Premise: Eating three times every day helps to keep you alive.

Conclusion: Everyone alive today eats three times every day.

Explanation: This might not necessarily be true as there are people who do not eat three times every day, yet, they are still alive.

Statements are different from Reasoning in that statements are facts and are said with a tone showing facts. Reasoning, however, is statements that seek to link particular evidence to a claim, i.e., Reasoning provides valid proof of why a particular claim is true.

Conclusion

Statement and Reasoning go hand in hand, and we use them every day of our lives.

While we make statements, we also find ways of proving them to be accurate using Reasoning.

We provide evidence to back our claims through Reasoning.

Sometimes, however, some of our Reasoning does not yield accurate conclusions, especially when we overgeneralize our premise. This is called inductive Reasoning.

When correct and accurate premises are used, we get accurate conclusions from our Reasoning, called deductive Reasoning.