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Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics

Author : Hsiang-Ke Chao

Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media

Page : 256 pages

File Size : 50,6 MB

Release : 2013-07-31

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 9400724543

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Book Description

This volume addresses fundamental issues in the philosophy of science in the context of two most intriguing fields: biology and economics. Written by authorities and experts in the philosophy of biology and economics, Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics provides a structured study of the concepts of mechanism and causality in these disciplines and draws careful juxtapositions between philosophical apparatus and scientific practice. By exploring the issues that are most salient to the contemporary philosophies of biology and economics and by presenting comparative analyses, the book serves as a platform not only for gaining mutual understanding between scientists and philosophers of the life sciences and those of the social sciences, but also for sharing interdisciplinary research that combines both philosophical concepts in both fields. The book begins by defining the concepts of mechanism and causality in biology and economics, respectively. The second and third parts investigate philosophical perspectives of various causal and mechanistic issues in scientific practice in the two fields. These two sections include chapters on causal issues in the theory of evolution; experiments and scientific discovery; representation of causal relations and mechanism by models in economics. The concluding section presents interdisciplinary studies of various topics concerning extrapolation of life sciences and social sciences, including chapters on the philosophical investigation of conjoining biological and economic analyses with, respectively, demography, medicine and sociology.



Evolutionary Causation

Author : Tobias Uller

Publisher : MIT Press

Page : 361 pages

File Size : 14,8 MB

Release : 2019-09-03

Category : Science

ISBN : 0262039923

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Book Description

A comprehensive treatment of the concept of causation in evolutionary biology that makes clear its central role in both historical and contemporary debates. Most scientific explanations are causal. This is certainly the case in evolutionary biology, which seeks to explain the diversity of life and the adaptive fit between organisms and their surroundings. The nature of causation in evolutionary biology, however, is contentious. How causation is understood shapes the structure of evolutionary theory, and historical and contemporary debates in evolutionary biology have revolved around the nature of causation. Despite its centrality, and differing views on the subject, the major conceptual issues regarding the nature of causation in evolutionary biology are rarely addressed. This volume fills the gap, bringing together biologists and philosophers to offer a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of evolutionary causation. Contributors first address biological motivations for rethinking evolutionary causation, considering the ways in which development, extra-genetic inheritance, and niche construction challenge notions of cause and process in evolution, and describing how alternative representations of evolutionary causation can shed light on a range of evolutionary problems. Contributors then analyze evolutionary causation from a philosophical perspective, considering such topics as causal entanglement, the commingling of organism and environment, and the relationship between causation and information. Contributors John A. Baker, Lynn Chiu, David I. Dayan, Renée A. Duckworth, Marcus W Feldman, Susan A. Foster, Melissa A. Graham, Heikki Helanterä, Kevin N. Laland, Armin P. Moczek, John Odling-Smee, Jun Otsuka, Massimo Pigliucci, Arnaud Pocheville, Arlin Stoltzfus, Karola Stotz, Sonia E. Sultan, Christoph Thies, Tobias Uller, Denis M. Walsh, Richard A. Watson



The Book of Why

Author : Judea Pearl

Publisher : Basic Books

Page : 432 pages

File Size : 31,92 MB

Release : 2018-05-15

Category : Computers

ISBN : 0465097618

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Book Description

A Turing Award-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence "Correlation is not causation." This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality -- the study of cause and effect -- on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.



Causality

Author : Carlo Berzuini

Publisher : John Wiley & Sons

Page : 387 pages

File Size : 22,39 MB

Release : 2012-06-04

Category : Mathematics

ISBN : 1119941733

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Book Description

A state of the art volume on statistical causality Causality: Statistical Perspectives and Applications presents a wide-ranging collection of seminal contributions by renowned experts in the field, providing a thorough treatment of all aspects of statistical causality. It covers the various formalisms in current use, methods for applying them to specific problems, and the special requirements of a range of examples from medicine, biology and economics to political science. This book: Provides a clear account and comparison of formal languages, concepts and models for statistical causality. Addresses examples from medicine, biology, economics and political science to aid the reader's understanding. Is authored by leading experts in their field. Is written in an accessible style. Postgraduates, professional statisticians and researchers in academia and industry will benefit from this book.



Causality in the Sciences

Author : Phyllis McKay Illari

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Page : 953 pages

File Size : 36,68 MB

Release : 2011-03-17

Category : Mathematics

ISBN : 0199574138

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Book Description

Why do ideas of how mechanisms relate to causality and probability differ so much across the sciences? Can progress in understanding the tools of causal inference in some sciences lead to progress in others? This book tackles these questions and others concerning the use of causality in the sciences.



The New Mechanical Philosophy

Author : Stuart Glennan

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Page : 392 pages

File Size : 43,98 MB

Release : 2017-08-04

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 0191085294

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Book Description

The New Mechanical Philosophy argues for a new image of nature and of science--one that understands both natural and social phenomena to be the product of mechanisms, and that casts the work of science as an effort to discover and understand those mechanisms. Drawing on an expanding literature on mechanisms in physical, life, and social sciences, Stuart Glennan offers an account of the nature of mechanisms and of the models used to represent them. A key quality of mechanisms is that they are particulars - located at different places and times, with no one just like another. The crux of the scientist's challenge is to balance the complexity and particularity of mechanisms with our need for representations of them that are abstract and general. This volume weaves together metaphysical and methodological questions about mechanisms. Metaphysically, it explores the implications of the mechanistic framework for our understanding of classical philosophical questions about the nature of objects, properties, processes, events, causal relations, natural kinds and laws of nature. Methodologically, the book explores how scientists build models to represent and understand phenomena and the mechanisms responsible for them. Using this account of representation, Glennan offers a scheme for characterizing the enormous diversity of things that scientists call mechanisms, and explores the scope and limits of mechanistic explanation.



The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy

Author : Stuart Glennan

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 1087 pages

File Size : 23,33 MB

Release : 2017-07-06

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 1317552296

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Book Description

Scientists studying the burning of stars, the evolution of species, DNA, the brain, the economy, and social change, all frequently describe their work as searching for mechanisms. Despite this fact, for much of the twentieth century philosophical discussions of the nature of mechanisms remained outside philosophy of science. The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into four Parts: Historical perspectives on mechanisms The nature of mechanisms Mechanisms and the philosophy of science Disciplinary perspectives on mechanisms. Within these Parts central topics and problems are examined, including the rise of mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century; what mechanisms are made of and how they are organized; mechanisms and laws and regularities; how mechanisms are discovered and explained; dynamical systems theory; and disciplinary perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, biomedicine, ecology, neuroscience, and the social sciences. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of science, the Handbook will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as metaphysics, philosophy of psychology, and history of science.



In Search of Mechanisms

Author : Carl F. Craver

Publisher : University of Chicago Press

Page : 251 pages

File Size : 23,27 MB

Release : 2013-10-03

Category : Science

ISBN : 022603982X

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Book Description

Neuroscientists investigate the mechanisms of spatial memory. Molecular biologists study the mechanisms of protein synthesis and the myriad mechanisms of gene regulation. Ecologists study nutrient cycling mechanisms and their devastating imbalances in estuaries such as the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, much of biology and its history involves biologists constructing, evaluating, and revising their understanding of mechanisms. With In Search of Mechanisms, Carl F. Craver and Lindley Darden offer both a descriptive and an instructional account of how biologists discover mechanisms. Drawing on examples from across the life sciences and through the centuries, Craver and Darden compile an impressive toolbox of strategies that biologists have used and will use again to reveal the mechanisms that produce, underlie, or maintain the phenomena characteristic of living things. They discuss the questions that figure in the search for mechanisms, characterizing the experimental, observational, and conceptual considerations used to answer them, all the while providing examples from the history of biology to highlight the kinds of evidence and reasoning strategies employed to assess mechanisms. At a deeper level, Craver and Darden pose a systematic view of what biology is, of how biology makes progress, of how biological discoveries are and might be made, and of why knowledge of biological mechanisms is important for the future of the human species.



Philosophy of Science in Practice

Author : Hsiang-Ke Chao

Publisher : Springer

Page : 207 pages

File Size : 23,25 MB

Release : 2016-12-27

Category : Science

ISBN : 331945532X

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Book Description

This volume reflects the ‘philosophy of science in practice’ approach and takes a fresh look at traditional philosophical problems in the context of natural, social, and health research. Inspired by the work of Nancy Cartwright that shows how the practices and apparatuses of science help us to understand science and to build theories in the philosophy of science, this volume critically examines the philosophical concepts of evidence, laws, causation, and models and their roles in the process of scientific reasoning. Each chapter is an important one in the philosophy of science, while the volume as a whole deals with these philosophical concepts in a unified way in the context of actual scientific practice. This volume thus aims to contribute to this new direction in the philosophy of science.​



Causality and Objectivity in Macroeconomics

Author : Tobias Henschen

Publisher : Taylor & Francis

Page : 219 pages

File Size : 21,45 MB

Release : 2023-09-29

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 1000961788

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Book Description

Central banks and other policymaking institutions use causal hypotheses to justify macroeconomic policy decisions to the public and public institutions. These hypotheses say that changes in one macroeconomic aggregate (e.g. aggregate demand) cause changes in other macroeconomic aggregates (e.g. in inflation). An important (perhaps the most important) goal of macroeconomists is to provide conclusive evidence in support of these hypotheses. If they cannot provide any conclusive evidence, then policymaking institutions will be unable to use causal hypotheses to justify policy decisions, and then the scientific objectivity of macroeconomic policy analysis will be questionable. The book analyzes the accounts of causality that have been or can be proposed to capture the type of causality that underlies macroeconomic policy analysis, the empirical methods of causal inference that contemporary macroeconomists have at their disposal, and the conceptions of scientific objectivity that traditionally play a role in economics. The book argues that contemporary macroeconomists cannot provide any conclusive evidence in support of causal hypotheses, and that macroeconomic policy analysis doesn’t qualify as scientifically objective in any of the traditional meanings. The book also considers a number of steps that might have to be taken in order for macroeconomic policy analysis to become more objective. The book addresses philosophers of science and economics as well as (macro-) economists, econometricians and statisticians who are interested in causality and macro-econometric methods of causal inference and their wider philosophical and social context.