A deductive argument states that the truth of the conclusion follows logically from the premises. Consider the following argument: Because bats can fly (premise=true), and all flying creatures are birds (premise=false), bats must be birds (conclusion=false). This argument is called "deductive" because it follows a strict set of logical steps or "rules" for proof. An inductive argument does not have a strict set of rules to follow. With inductive arguments, we make assumptions about what has been proven before, and then try to show that those assumptions hold for the new information being considered. Consider the following argument: All birds are living creatures (assumption) so every bird is alive (conclusion). This argument is called "inductive" because we are using the idea that something has been shown to be true to conclude that it must be true about another thing. Induction can only prove general truths about groups of things; it cannot prove specific facts about any one item. Logical arguments can be either inductive or deductive. Inductive arguments do not guarantee that new information will have the same result as previous information. For example, considering only animals on land, trees would not be included in an induction about plants. However, even though trees are not plants they do still share some similarities with them. So assuming that all plants have these similarities and then looking at trees might help us learn more about plants.