Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:14:04.448Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

MEDICAL MECHANISMS AND THE RESILIENCE OF PROBABILITIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2018

Stefan Dragulinescu Open the ORCID record for Stefan Dragulinescu [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper argues that there is an important connection between Inference to the Best Explanation and Bayesianism, in the medical context of the interplay between mechanisms and population studies. It is argued that the criteria for evaluating mechanistic evidence can be used in Inference to the Best Explanation and such use thereby increases the resilience of probabilities in a Bayesian framework. This point grows out of the emerging literature on evidence-based medicine and naturally strengthens McCain and Poston's proposal that explanatory information is evidentially relevant.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 322 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ashby, D. and Smith, A. 2000. ‘Evidence-based Medicine as Bayesian Decision-making.’ Statistics in Medicine, 19(23): 3291–305.Google Scholar
Bechtel, W. and Abrahamsen, A. 2005. ‘Explanation: A Mechanist Alternative.’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2): 421–41.Google Scholar
Bechtel, W. and Abrahamsen, A. 2011. ‘Complex Biological Mechanisms: Cyclic, Oscillatory, and Autonomous.’ In Hooker, C. A. (ed.), Philosophy of Complex Systems. Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 10. New York, NY: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Bird, A. 2010. ‘Eliminative Abduction – Examples from Medicine.’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 4: 345–52.Google Scholar
Bird, A. 2011. ‘The Epistemological Function of Hill's Criteria.’ Preventive Medicine, 53: 85–96.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N. 1999. The Dappled World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, B., Gillies, D., Illari, P., Russo, F. and Williamson, J. 2014a. ‘Mechanisms and the Evidence Hierarchy.’ Topoi, 33(2): 339–60.Google Scholar
Clarke, B., Leuridan, B. & Williamson, J. 2014b. ‘Modelling Mechanisms with Causal Cycles.’ Synthese, 191(8): 1651–81.Google Scholar
Dragulinescu, S. 2012. ‘On ‘Stabilising’ Medical Mechanisms, Truth-makers and Epistemic Causality: A Critique to Williamson and Russo's Approach.’ Synthese, 187(2): 785–800.Google Scholar
Dragulinescu, S. 2016. ‘Inference to the Best Explanation and Mechanisms in Medicine.’ Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 37: 211–32.Google Scholar
Dragulinescu, S. 2017. ‘Inference to the Best Explanation as a Theory for the Quality of Mechanistic Evidence in Medicine.’ European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 7(2): 353–72.Google Scholar
Endo, A. 2010. ‘A Historical Perspective on the Discovery of Statins.’ Proceedings of the Japan Academy. Series B, Physical and Biological Sciences, 86(5): 484–93.Google Scholar
Folke, C. 2006. ‘Resilience: The Emergence of a Perspective for Social-Ecological Systems Analysis.’ Global Environmental Change, 16: 253–67.Google Scholar
Glass, D. 2012. ‘Inference to the Best Explanation: Does it Track Truth?’ Synthese, 185: 411–27.Google Scholar
Illari, P. 2011. ‘Mechanistic Evidence: Disambiguating the Russo-Williamson Thesis.’ International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 25: 139–57.Google Scholar
Iranzo, V. 2008. ‘Bayesianism and Inference to the Best Explanation.’ Theoria, 23(1): 89–106.Google Scholar
Joyce, J. 2005. ‘How Probabilities Reflect Evidence.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 19(1): 153–78.Google Scholar
Kelly, T. 2008. ‘Evidence: Fundamental Concepts and the Phenomenal Conception.’ Philosophy Compass, 3(5): 933–55.Google Scholar
Leitgeb, H. 2014. ‘The Stability Theory of Belief.’ Philosophical Review, 123(2): 131–71.Google Scholar
Leitgeb, H. 2017. The Stability of Belief. How Rational Belief Coheres with Probability. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lipton, P. 2001. ‘Is Explanation a Guide to Inference? A reply to Wesley C. Salmon.’ In Hon, G. and Rakover, S. (eds), Explanation, Theoretical Approaches and Applications, pp. 93–120. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Lipton, P. 2004. Inference to the Best Explanation (Second edition). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McCain, K. and Poston, T. 2014. ‘Why Explanatoriness is Evidentially Relevant.’ Thought, 3(2): 145–53.Google Scholar
Mellor, H. 1983. ‘Review of Brian Skyrms ‘Causal Necessity: a Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws. New Haven: Yale University, 1980.’ British Journal of Philosophy of Science, 34(1): 97–104.Google Scholar
Niiniluoto, I. 1999. ‘Defending Abduction.’ Philosophy of Science, 66: S436–S451.Google Scholar
Okasha, S. 2000. ‘Van Fraassen's Critique of Inference to the Best Explanation.’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 31 (4): 691–710.Google Scholar
Ravnskov, U. 2002. ‘Is Atherosclerosis Caused by High Cholesterol?’ QJM, 95(6): 397–403.Google Scholar
Ravnskov, U., Diamond, D. M., Hama, R., Hamazaki, T., Hammarskjöld, B., Hynes, N. et al. 2016. ‘Lack of an Association or an Inverse Association Between Low-density-lipoprotein Cholesterol and Mortality in the Elderly: A Systematic Review.’ BMJ Open, 6 (6): e010401.Google Scholar
Roche, W. and Sober, E. 2013. ‘Explanatoriness is Evidentially Irrelevant, or Inference to The Best Explanation Meets Bayesian Confirmation Theory.’ Analysis, 73: 659–68.Google Scholar
Romeijn, J.-M. 2013. ‘Abducted by Bayesians?’ Journal of Applied Logic, 11(4): 430–9.Google Scholar
Russo, F. and Williamson, J. 2007. ‘Interpreting Causality in the Health Sciences.’ International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 21(2): 157–70.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. 2001. ‘Reflections of a Bashful Bayesian: A Reply to Peter Lipton.’ In Hon, G. and Rakover, S. (eds), Explanation, Theoretical Approaches and Applications, pp. 121–36. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Skyrms, B. 1977. ‘Resiliency, Propensities, and Causal Necessity.’ Journal of Philosophy, 74(11): 704–13.Google Scholar
Skyrms, B. 1980. Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws. New Haven, CT: Yale University.Google Scholar
Steinberg, D. 2005a. ‘An Interpretive History of the Cholesterol Controversy, Part II: The Early Evidence Linking Hypercholesterolemia to Coronary Disease in Humans.’ Journal of Lipid Research, 46: 179–90.Google Scholar
Steinberg, D. 2005b. ‘An Interpretive History of the Cholesterol Controversy, Part III: Mechanistically Defining the Role of Hyperlipidemia.’ Journal of Lipid Research, 46: 2037–51.Google Scholar
Van Fraassen, B. C. 1989. Laws and Symmetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weisberg, J. 2009. ‘Locating IBE in the Bayesian Framework.’ Synthese, 167: 125–43.Google Scholar
Wilde, M. and Williamson, J. 2016. ‘Evidence and Epistemic Causality.’ In Wiedermann, W. and von Eye, A. (eds), Statistics and Causality: Methods for Applied Empirical Research, pp. 31–41. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Williamson, J. 2011. ‘Mechanistic Theories of Causality.’ Philosophy Compass, 6: 421–32.Google Scholar