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There is a need for integrated thinking about causality, probability and mechanisms in scientific methodology. Causality and probability are long-established central concepts in the sciences, with a corresponding philosophical literature examining their problems. On the other hand, the philosophical literature examining mechanisms is not long-established, and there is no clear idea of how mechanisms relate to causality and probability. But we need some idea if we are to understand causal inference in the sciences: a panoply of disciplines, ranging from epidemiology to biology, from econometrics to physics, routinely make use of probability, statistics, theory and mechanisms to infer causal relationships. These disciplines have developed very different methods, where causality and probability often seem to have different understandings, and where the mechanisms involved often look very different. This variegated situation raises the question of whether the different sciences are really using different concepts, or whether progress in understanding the tools of causal inference in some sciences can lead to progress in other sciences. The book tackles these questions as well as others concerning the use of causality in the sciences.
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University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online Causality in the Sciences Phyllis McKay Illari, Federica Russo, and Jon Williamson
Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199574131 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2011 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199574131.001.0001
Title Pages Causality in the Sciences Causality in the Sciences
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by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Oxford University Press 2011 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2011922687 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire ISBN 978–0–19–957413–1 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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Contents Front Matter Title Pages List of Contributors
Part I Introduction 1 Why look at causality in the sciences? A manifesto Phyllis McKay Illari, Federica Russo, and Jon Williamson
Part II Health sciences 2 Causality, theories and medicine R. Paul Thompson