#17 - Lauren Ross: Causal Concepts and Analogies

In this episode, Geoff and Lauren discuss a range of causal concepts and analogies that we encounter in scientific work. Lauren is doing important work in philosophy of science, writing about casual explanations. She argues that the concept of a ‘mechanism’ (an analogy to a machine) has been over-extended, particularly by new mechanist philosophers. Lauren points to the other causal concepts used by scientists: a ‘pathway’ (an analogy to a roadway) and a ‘cascade’ (an analogy to a waterfall or the snowball effect). The evidence points towards a diversity of causal concepts and causal structures. Geoff and Lauren discuss: analogies for causation (mechanism, pathway, cascade); distinguishing mechanism vs. pathway; distinguishing mechanism vs. cascade; making connection in different domains of life; analogies and other language for explaining; stories and visual imagery; causation and the goal of control; the observer in science; insights from cognitive science (in fields like causal cognition or cognitive metaphysics); investigating human biases; Lauren’s background from medical school to HPS; big picture questions about medicine (biology, diseases, patient outcomes); applying medical training to HPS; causation as it features in different scientific disciplines; background conditions in biology vs. physics; three types of pluralism (structures, methods and the definition of causation); and other topics! *** Lauren Ross is an Associate Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine. She has an MD from the School of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine and a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh. This crossover influences a good deal of her work in philosophy of biology, philosophy of neuroscience and philosophy of medicine. Lauren’s research focuses on causation and explanation in science. In her recent work, she analyses how scientists provide explanations by using various causal concepts and analogies, such as ’mechanism’, ‘pathway’ and ‘cascade’.  For this work she has received the NSF Career Award and the Humboldt Experienced Researcher Fellowship.  In other projects, Lauren has discussed causal explanation in neuroscience (neural connections in the brain), in psychiatry (psychiatric genetics) and in chemistry (the periodic table). https://www.lps.uci.edu/~rossl/ *** Follow Extrapolator on social media for all the latest news: instagram.com/extrapolatorpod facebook.com/extrapolatorpod linkedin.com/company/extrapolator