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Some Issues to Consider in thinking about Causes and Explanations

Some Issues to Consider in thinking about Causes and Explanations. Issues in Causal Analysis. Limitations of traditional, single-causal models in dealing with non-communicable disease There are many conceptions of causation

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Some Issues to Consider in thinking about Causes and Explanations

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  1. Some Issues to Consider in thinking about Causes and Explanations

  2. Issues in Causal Analysis • Limitations of traditional, single-causal models in dealing with non-communicable disease • There are many conceptions of causation • Statistics refers to probability and chance, but what do these actually mean? • Levels of explanation: the How vs. the Why? • Are we using the right mathematical basis? • Complexity & chaos theory; non-linear relations; fuzzy logic, etc.

  3. Background • There is a spectrum of sciences from hard to soft; different approaches to causation in each • Especially: generalising vs. particularising traditions: • What is the purpose of science: to derive general laws, or to explain individual cases? (Nomothetic vs. idiographic sciences) • The approach to causal thinking is different in each, and medicine is in both camps

  4. Categories of explanation • Scientific explanations (theory is central) • Narrative (describes what happened) • Historical (explains specific events) • Teleological (the purpose or reason) • Everyday (usually the “why” questions) • Magical, religious (are these really explanations?)

  5. Aristotelian To make facts teleologically understandable Applied to actions & intentional agency “Why?” questions Used in human & social sciences Galilean To explain & predict Commonly applied to events Causal mechanisms Generally “how?” questions Used in natural sciences Two traditions Both seem relevant to medicine…

  6. Holism, reductionism & complexity theory • Basic question of whether a complex whole (e.g., your mind) can be understood in terms of functioning of its parts • “Holism” argues that the whole cannot be understood by analyzing parts; “why?” & “how?” are distinct • “Reductionism” says that laws governing the whole can be deduced from laws governing the parts, plus laws concerning relations between the parts

  7. Sources of explanations for social epidemiology • Social sciences – sociology • Behavioral science • Psychology, personality, etc. • Combined psychological + biological (e.g., psycho-neuro-immunology) • What about history?

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