That was interesting, and news to me, too. "Abduction" sounds like a sort of version of "Occam's Razor."

The surprising phenomenon, X, is observed.
Among hypotheses A, B, and C, A is capable of explaining X.
Hence, there is a reason to pursue A.

This makes a lot of sense, but if you're not careful about "A" you could end up specializing in phlogiston chemistry.

Peirce cited several examples of remarkable correct guesses. All success is not simply lucky. Instead, the opportunity was taken by the people who were prepared:



a). Bacon's guess that heat was a mode of motion;
b). Young's guess that the primary colors were violet, green and red;
c). Dalton's guess that there were chemical atoms before the invention of microscope (cited in Tursman, 1987)



I thought the primary colors were red, blue, and yellow, (or red, green and blue/cyan when dealing with light.)