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What is this thing called efficacy

Nancy Cartwright

In (2009)

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Patient-specific devices and population-level evidence: evaluating therapeutic interventions with inherent variation.Mary Jean Walker - 2018 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 21 (3):335-345.details Designing and manufacturing medical devices for specific patients is becoming increasingly feasible with developments in 3D printing and 3D imaging software. This raises the question of how patient-specific devices can be evaluated, since our ‘gold standard’ method for evaluation, the randomised controlled trial, requires that an intervention is standardised across a number of individuals in an experimental group. I distinguish several senses of patient-specific device, and focus the discussion on understanding the problem of variations between instances of an intervention for (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 2 citations
Using case studies in the social sciences: methods, inferences, purposes.Attilia Ruzzene - 2015 - Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 8 (1):123.details Download Export citation Bookmark
Problems with using mechanisms to solve the problem of extrapolation.Jeremy Howick, Paul Glasziou & Jeffrey K. Aronson - 2013 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 34 (4):275-291.details Proponents of evidence-based medicine and some philosophers of science seem to agree that knowledge of mechanisms can help solve the problem of applying results of controlled studies to target populations (‘the problem of extrapolation’). We describe the problem of extrapolation, characterize mechanisms, and outline how mechanistic knowledge might be used to solve the problem. Our main thesis is that there are four often overlooked problems with using mechanistic knowledge to solve the problem of extrapolation. First, our understanding of mechanisms is (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 32 citations
In defense of meta-analysis.Bennett Holman - 2019 - Synthese 196 (8):3189-3211.details Arguments that medical decision making should rely on a variety of evidence often begin from the claim that meta-analysis has been shown to be problematic. In this paper, I first examine Stegenga’s argument that meta-analysis requires multiple decisions and thus fails to provide an objective ground for medical decision making. Next, I examine three arguments from social epistemologists that contend that meta-analyses are systematically biased in ways not appreciated by standard epistemology. In most cases I show that critiques of meta-analysis (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 7 citations
(1 other version)Does Roush show that evidence should be probable?Damien Fennell & Nancy Cartwright - 2010 - Synthese 175 (3):289 - 310.details This paper critically analyzes Sherrilyn Roush's (Tracking truth: knowledge, evidence and science, 2005) definition of evidence and especially her powerful defence that in the ideal, a claim should be probable to be evidence for anything. We suggest that Roush treats not one sense of 'evidence' but three: relevance, leveraging and grounds for knowledge; and that different parts of her argument fare differently with respect to different senses. For relevance, we argue that probable evidence is sufficient but not necessary for Roush's (...) Download Export citation Bookmark
(2 other versions)Evidence-based policy: what’s to be done about relevance?: For the 2008 Oberlin Philosophy Colloquium. [REVIEW]Nancy Cartwright - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 143 (1):127 - 136.details How can philosophy of science be of more practical use? One thing we can do is provide practicable advice about how to determine when one empirical claim is relevant to the truth of another; i.e., about evidential relevance. This matters especially for evidence-based policy, where advice is thin—and misleading—about how to tell what counts as evidence for policy effectiveness. This paper argues that good efficacy results (as in randomized controlled trials), which are all the rage now, are only a very (...) Download Export citation Bookmark 24 citations
How to tell when efficacy will NOT translate into effectiveness.Chris Thompson - unknowndetails I aim to show that the failure of the California Class Size Reduction initiative highlights an important class of situations in the application of evidence to policy. There are some circumstances in which the implementation of a policy will be self-defeating. The introduction of the factor assumed to have causal efficacy into the target population can lead to changes in the conditions of the target population that amount to interfering factors. Because these interfering factors are a direct result of the (...) Download Export citation Bookmark
How to tell when efficacy will NOT translate into effectiveness.Christopher Thompson - 2009 - In Damien Fennell (ed.), Contingency and Dissent in Science, Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, LSE.details I aim to show that the failure of the California Class Size Reduction initiative highlights an important class of situations in the application of evidence to policy. There are some circumstances in which the implementation of a policy will be self-defeating. The introduction of the factor assumed to have causal efficacy into the target population can lead to changes in the conditions of the target population that amount to interfering factors. Because these interfering factors are a direct result of the (...) Download Export citation Bookmark

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