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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.
This book is open access under a CC BY license. This book is the
first to develop explicit methods for evaluating evidence of
mechanisms in the field of medicine. It explains why it can be
important to make this evidence explicit, and describes how to take
such evidence into account in the evidence appraisal process. In
addition, it develops procedures for seeking evidence of
mechanisms, for evaluating evidence of mechanisms, and for
combining this evaluation with evidence of association in order to
yield an overall assessment of effectiveness. Evidence-based
medicine seeks to achieve improved health outcomes by making
evidence explicit and by developing explicit methods for evaluating
it. To date, evidence-based medicine has largely focused on
evidence of association produced by clinical studies. As such, it
has tended to overlook evidence of pathophysiological mechanisms
and evidence of the mechanisms of action of interventions. The book
offers a useful guide for all those whose work involves evaluating
evidence in the health sciences, including those who need to
determine the effectiveness of health interventions and those who
need to ascertain the effects of environmental exposures.
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.
Head hits cause brain damage - but not always. Should we ban sport
to protect athletes? Exposure to electromagnetic fields is strongly
associated with cancer development - does that mean exposure causes
cancer? Should we encourage old fashioned communication instead of
mobile phones to reduce cancer rates? According to popular wisdom,
the Mediterranean diet keeps you healthy. Is this belief
scientifically sound? Should public health bodies encourage
consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables? Severe financial
constraints on research and public policy, media pressure, and
public anxiety make such questions of immense current concern not
just to philosophers but to scientists, governments, public bodies,
and the general public. In the last decade there has been an
explosion of theorizing about causality in philosophy, and also in
the sciences. This literature is both fascinating and important,
but it is involved and highly technical. This makes it inaccessible
to many who would like to use it, philosophers and scientists
alike. This book is an introduction to philosophy of causality -
one that is highly accessible: to scientists unacquainted with
philosophy, to philosophers unacquainted with science, and to
anyone else lost in the labyrinth of philosophical theories of
causality. It presents key philosophical accounts, concepts and
methods, using examples from the sciences to show how to apply
philosophical debates to scientific problems.
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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