Heritability, causal influence and locality.
Heritability is routinely interpreted causally. Yet, what such an interpretation amounts to is often unclear. Here, I provide a causal interpretation of this concept in terms of range of causal influence, one of several causal dimensions proposed within the interventionist account of causation. An i...
| Published in: | Synthese Vol. 198; no. 15; pp. 6689 - 6716 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Jul2021
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=151386104&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 151386104 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2021 vid: 198 iid: 15 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 151386104 10.1007/s11229-019-02484-3 ppf: 6689 ppct: 27 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 658KB tig: atl: Heritability, causal influence and locality. aug: au: Bourrat, Pierrick affil: Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University, 2109, North Ryde, NSW, Australia Department of Philosophy and Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, 2006, Camperdown, NSW, Australia su: Phenotypes Genotype-environment interaction Heritability Genotypes sug: subj: Phenotypes Genotype-environment interaction Heritability Genotypes keyword: Causal influence Causal specificity Causality Invariance Locality Stability ab: Heritability is routinely interpreted causally. Yet, what such an interpretation amounts to is often unclear. Here, I provide a causal interpretation of this concept in terms of range of causal influence, one of several causal dimensions proposed within the interventionist account of causation. An information-theoretic measure of range of causal influence has recently been put forward in the literature. Starting from this formalization and relying upon Woodward's analysis, I show that an important problem associated with interpreting heritability causally, namely the locality problem, amounts, at least partly, to a low invariance and low stability between the genotype/environment and the phenotype of individuals. In light of this, I plead for a causal interpretation of heritability that takes the notions of Woodward's invariance and stability into consideration. In doing so, I defuse naive causal interpretations of heritability. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2021. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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