Warranting the use of causal claims: a non-trivial case for interdisciplinarity
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| Format: | Artículo científico |
| Language: | en |
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Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
2012
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| _version_ | 1876428504097095680 |
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| author | Menno ROL |
| author_facet | Menno ROL |
| contents | Warranting the use of causal claims: a non-trivial case for interdisciplinarity Menno ROL Nancy CARTWRIGHT Filosofía prediction abstraction ceteris paribus Causal inference policy evaluation To what use can causal claims established in good policy studies be put? We isolate two reasons infer- ences from study to target fail. First, policy variables do not produce results on their own; they need help- ing factors. The distribution of helping factors is likely to be unique or local for each study, so one cannot expect external validity to be all that common. Second, researchers often give too concrete a description of the cause in the study for it to carry over to the target. Abstraction is necessary to get causes that travel. There is no sure-fire way to guard against these problems. But the unavailability of one perfect tool does not imply there are no second best contrivances. Two general pointers for Good Practice in policy advice follow from our diagnosis: focus on the concrete details in the target and use cross discipline heuristics that diversify background knowledge. 2012 artículo científico 0495-4548 https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=339730819005 en http://www.redalyc.org/revista.oa?id=3397 THEORIA. Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia application/pdf Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea THEORIA. Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia (España) Num.2 Vol.27 |
| format | Artículo científico |
| id | redalyc_339730819005 |
| institution | Redalyc |
| language | en |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea |
| spellingShingle | Warranting the use of causal claims: a non-trivial case for interdisciplinarity Menno ROL Filosofía prediction abstraction ceteris paribus Causal inference policy evaluation Warranting the use of causal claims: a non-trivial case for interdisciplinarity Menno ROL Nancy CARTWRIGHT Filosofía prediction abstraction ceteris paribus Causal inference policy evaluation To what use can causal claims established in good policy studies be put? We isolate two reasons infer- ences from study to target fail. First, policy variables do not produce results on their own; they need help- ing factors. The distribution of helping factors is likely to be unique or local for each study, so one cannot expect external validity to be all that common. Second, researchers often give too concrete a description of the cause in the study for it to carry over to the target. Abstraction is necessary to get causes that travel. There is no sure-fire way to guard against these problems. But the unavailability of one perfect tool does not imply there are no second best contrivances. Two general pointers for Good Practice in policy advice follow from our diagnosis: focus on the concrete details in the target and use cross discipline heuristics that diversify background knowledge. 2012 artículo científico 0495-4548 https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=339730819005 en http://www.redalyc.org/revista.oa?id=3397 THEORIA. Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia application/pdf Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea THEORIA. Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia (España) Num.2 Vol.27 |
| title | Warranting the use of causal claims: a non-trivial case for interdisciplinarity |
| topic | Filosofía prediction abstraction ceteris paribus Causal inference policy evaluation |
| url | https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=339730819005 |