The concept of mechanism in biology

Nicholson, Daniel J.

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2011.05.014

Cited by 124 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(48 reference statements)

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“…For example, the putative causal pathway that links taking an antidepressant medication (a person-level variable) to an improved self-described level of happiness (a person-level variable) may well involve mediating variables including serotonin reuptake rates (a cell-level variable) and changes in family dynamic (a group-level variable). This aligns most closely with Nicholson's third meaning of mechanism, "causal mechanism," which avoids any reference to internal workings or components: "A step-by-step explanation of the mode of operation of a causal process that gives rise to a phenomenon of interest" (Nicholson 2012). …”

Section: Assumption #2 Mechanistic Evidence Deals Exclusively With Vasupporting

confidence: 54%

“…As a result, it is tempting to think that mechanistic evidence in the health sciences lives only at lower levels of organization than the causal claim of interest. Indeed, of the three biological meanings of "mechanism" described by Daniel Nicholson, two ("mechanicism" and "machine mechanism") deal only with components or internal workings (Nicholson 2012). …”

Section: Assumption #2 Mechanistic Evidence Deals Exclusively With Vamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence, illness, and causation: An epidemiological perspective on the Russo–Williamson Thesis

Fiorentino

Dammann

2015

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in

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According to the Russo-Williamson thesis, causal claims in the health sciences need to be supported by both difference-making and mechanistic evidence. In this article, we attempt to determine whether Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) can be improved through the consideration of mechanistic evidence. We discuss the practical composition and function of each RWT evidence type and propose that exposure-outcome evidence (previously known as difference-making evidence) provides associations that can be explained through a hypothesis of causation, while mechanistic evidence provides finer-grained associations and knowledge of entities that ultimately explains a causal hypothesis. We suggest that mechanistic evidence holds untapped potential to add value to the assessment of evidence quality in EBM and propose initial recommendations for the integration of mechanistic and exposure-outcome evidence to improve EBM by robustly leveraging available evidence in support of good medical decisions.

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Section: Assumption #2 Mechanistic Evidence Deals Exclusively With Vasupporting

confidence: 54%

Section: Assumption #2 Mechanistic Evidence Deals Exclusively With Vamentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence, illness, and causation: An epidemiological perspective on the Russo–Williamson Thesis

Fiorentino

Dammann

2015

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in

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“…I suspect that a central reason has its origins in a muddling of the various senses of "mechanism" floating around in the literature (Allen 2005;Nicholson 2012). Indeed, the contemporary dialectic against organisms qua ontologically composed of mechanisms appears to often be focused on objections to organisms qua machines (Woese 2004;Dupré & O"Malley 2007;Dupré 2013;Jaeger & Monk 2015).…”

Section: A Few Final Thoughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ontology of organisms: Mechanistic modules or patterned processes?

Austin

2016

Biol Philos

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Though the realm of biology has long been under the philosophical rule of the mechanistic magisterium, recent years have seen a surprisingly steady rise in the usurping prowess of process ontology. According to its proponents, theoretical advances in the contemporary science of evo-devo have afforded that ontology a particularly powerful claim to the throne: in that increasingly empirically confirmed discipline, emergently autonomous, higher-order entities are the reigning explanantia. If we are to accept the election of evo-devo as our best conceptualisation of the biological realm with metaphysical rigour, must we depose our mechanistic ontology for failing to properly "carve at the joints" of organisms? In this paper, I challenge the legitimacy of that claim: not only can the theoretical benefits offered by a process ontology be had without it, they cannot be sufficiently grounded without the metaphysical underpinning of the very mechanisms which processes purport to replace. The biological realm, I argue, remains one best understood as under the governance of mechanistic principles.There"s no doubt that one of the most trending topics in the philosophy of science is the so-called "new mechanism" movement. In the philosophy of biology in particular, the movement is truly a metaphysics en vogue: it represents a conceptual schema which appears to more than adequately capture the framework within which a wide variety of empirical data is commonly interpreted, and within which the experimental practitioners of that field carry out their work. According to the new mechanists, the biological realm is a mechanical realm, and its denizens -organisms -are machines par excellence. And although it"s undeniably the case that biology is a science of mechanisms in one sense or another, the pertinent question at hand is whether and to what extent the particulars of this now popular ontology properly carve at the same joints that our best contemporary biological models do.If we"re going to answer that question, a plausible place to do so is within the conceptual remit of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), a research programme whose fruit has been the reliable delineation of the various ontogenically and evolutionarily salient modular sub-systems which compose the meta-systems we recognise as organisms. What we want to know then is whether the ontology of evodevo is an ontology of mechanisms -that is, whether our best model of the composition of organisms is one capable of being constructed mechanistically. One would think that, given the past successes of a broadly mechanistic characterisation of the biological realm, this is a question that is likely to cause very few any pause -but there has rather recently arisen a dissenting voice claiming that the ontology of organisms evo-devo presents us with is not -and indeed, cannot be -one of "entities and activities", but is rather one consisting of activities alone.According to "process ontology", the familiar entities which our scientific theories describe a...

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“…Though mechanisms may be germane to various philosophical endeavors (Levy 2013;Nicholson 2012), most prominent is their central place in a theory of explanation, one intended to apply to many of the biological sciences. According to that theory, explanations are explanatory in virtue of communicating facts about "how things work" (Craver 2007b: 110) in the system that brings about, or constitutes, the phenomenon to be explained.…”

Section: -The Mechanistic Explanatory Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Mechanistic Explanation and the Need for Explanatory Constraints

Franklin-Hall

2016

Scientific Composition and Metaphysical Ground

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This paper critiques the new mechanistic explanatory program on grounds that, even when applied to the kinds of examples that it was originally designed to treat, it does not distinguish correct explanations from those that blunder. First, I offer a systematization of the explanatory account, one according to which explanations are mechanistic models that satisfy three desiderata: they must 1) represent causal relations, 2) describe the proper parts, and 3) depict the system at the right 'level.' Second, I argue that even the most developed attempts to fulfill these desiderata fall short by failing to appropriately constrain explanatorily apt mechanistic models.

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The concept of mechanism in biology

Cited by 124 publications

References 45 publications

Evidence, illness, and causation: An epidemiological perspective on the Russo–Williamson Thesis

Evidence, illness, and causation: An epidemiological perspective on the Russo–Williamson Thesis

The ontology of organisms: Mechanistic modules or patterned processes?

New Mechanistic Explanation and the Need for Explanatory Constraints

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