Extrapolation and the Russo–Williamson thesis.

A particular tradition in medicine claims that a variety of evidence is helpful in determining whether an observed correlation is causal. In line with this tradition, it has been claimed that establishing a causal claim in medicine requires both probabilistic and mechanistic evidence. This claim has...

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Publicado en:Synthese Vol. 196; no. 8; pp. 3251 - 3263
Autores principales: Wilde, Michael, Parkkinen, Veli-Pekka
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Aug2019
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Extrapolation and the Russo–Williamson thesis.
      aug:
        au:
          Wilde, Michael
          Parkkinen, Veli-Pekka
        affil: Department of Philosophy, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
      su:
        Extrapolation
        Cancer research
        International agencies
      sug:
        subj:
          Extrapolation
          Cancer research
          International agencies
      keyword:
        Causality
        IARC
        Robustness
        Russo–Williamson thesis
      ab: A particular tradition in medicine claims that a variety of evidence is helpful in determining whether an observed correlation is causal. In line with this tradition, it has been claimed that establishing a causal claim in medicine requires both probabilistic and mechanistic evidence. This claim has been put forward by Federica Russo and Jon Williamson. As a result, it is sometimes called the Russo–Williamson thesis. In support of this thesis, Russo and Williamson appeal to the practice of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). However, this practice presents some problematic cases for the Russo–Williamson thesis. One response to such cases is to argue in favour of reforming these practices. In this paper, we propose an alternative response according to which such cases are in fact consistent with the Russo–Williamson thesis. This response requires maintaining that there is a role for mechanism-based extrapolation in the practice of the IARC. However, the response works only if this mechanism-based extrapolation is reliable, and some have argued against the reliability of mechanism-based extrapolation. Against this, we provide some reasons for believing that reliable mechanism-based extrapolation is going on in the practice of the IARC. The reasons are provided by appealing to the role of robustness analysis.
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