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On the Incompatibility of Dynamical Biological Mechanisms and Causal Graphs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Marcel Weber
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Abstract

I examine to what extent accounts of mechanisms based on formal interventionist theories of causality can adequately represent biological mechanisms with complex dynamics. Using a differential equation model for a circadian clock mechanism as an example, I first show that there exists an iterative solution that can be interpreted as a structural causal model. Thus, in principle, it is possible to integrate causal difference-making information with dynamical information. However, the differential equation model itself lacks the right modularity properties for a full integration. A formal mechanistic model will therefore have to leave out either noncausal or causal explanatory relations.

Type
Adequacy of Causal Graphs and Bayes Networks
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 5 , December 2016 , pp. 959 - 971
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I wish to thank in particular Marie Kaiser, Lorenzo Casini, Alexander Gebharter, Naftali Weinberger, the audience at the PSA 2014 symposium “How Adequate Are Causal Graphs and Bayesian Networks for Modeling Biological Mechanisms?,” and the anonymous reviewers for many helpful suggestions and criticism. Versions of this paper were also presented at the Department of Philosophy, University of Neuchâtel, the Institute of Philosophy, Leibniz-University Hannover, the Biology Club, University of Fribourg, and the EPSA 2015 meeting in Düsseldorf.

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