I started watching the Sherlock TV series sometime last week. Since there are only 3 episodes per season I went through it quite quickly. It was an OK few hours of television but it had the same hole as any other Sherlock TV show, book, and movie.

• Sherlock does INDUCTIVE reasoning NOT deductive reasoning.

So the whole branch of science he “created”

1. Already exists, it’s called deductive logic.
2. Is completely wrong. He uses inductive logic.

For some reason, people writing adventures for Mr. Holmes have been unable to understand the difference between induction and deduction since 1887. Apparently there’s some other branch of logic that it actually is, called abductive reasoning. From the description it’s basic induction, some guessing, and finally after one has acquired these “facts” actual deductive logic.

I’m, probably, one of the few people who is irritated by this, aside from Philosophy professors who have to re-teach students the definitions. If only the creators were smart enough to see the difference; they could have used the correct terms to make the series more original and correct.

So ist das Leben.