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  1. The Content and Implications of Nativist Claims. A Philosophical Analysis.Riin Kõiv - 2021 - Dissertation, University of Tartu
    We often hear how scientists have discovered that a certain human trait – or a trait of another type of organism – is innate, genetic, heritable, inherited, naturally selected etc. All these claims have something in common: they all declare a trait to have significant organism internal (for instance genetic) causes that are present in the organism at its birth. I call claims like these “nativist claims”. Nativist claims are important. They shape our overall understanding of what we are, what (...)
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  • Polygene Risk Scores.James Woodward & Kenneth Kendler - 2023 - Philosophy of Medicine 4 (1).
    This paper explores the interpretation and use of polygenic risk scores (PRSs). We argue that PRSs generally do not directly embody causal information. Nonetheless, they can assist us in tracking other causal relationships concerning genetic effects. Although their purely predictive/correlational use is important, it is this tracking feature that contributes to their potential usefulness in other applications, such as genetic dissection, and their use as controls, which allow us, indirectly, to "see" more clearly the role of environmental variables.
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  • Genetically caused trait is an interactive kind.Riin Kõiv - 2023 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (3):1-25.
    In this paper I argue that the extent to which a human trait is genetically caused can causally depend upon whether the trait is categorized within human genetics as genetically caused. This makes the kindgenetically caused traitan interactive kind. I demonstrate that this thesis is both conceptually coherent and empirically plausible. I outline the core rationale of this thesis and demonstrate its conceptual coherence by drawing upon Waters’ (2007) analysis of genetic causation. I add empirical plausibility to the thesis by (...)
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  • Heritability and Etiology: Heritability estimates can provide causally relevant information.Jonathan Egeland - forthcoming - Personality and Individual Differences.
    Can heritability estimates provide causal information? This paper argues for an affirmative answer: since a non-nil heritability estimate satisfies certain characteristic properties of causation (i.e., association, manipulability, and counterfactual dependence), it increases the probability that the relation between genotypic variance and phenotypic variance is (at least partly) causal. Contrary to earlier proposals in the literature, the argument does not assume the correctness of any particular conception of the nature of causation, rather focusing on properties that are characteristic of causal relationships. (...)
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  • On the causal interpretation of heritability from a structural causal modeling perspective.Qiaoying Lu & Pierrick Bourrat - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 94 (C):87-98.
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  • The meaning of "cause" in genetics.Kate E. Lynch - 2021 - Combining Human Genetics and Causal Inference to Understand Human Disease and Development. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine.
    Causation has multiple distinct meanings in genetics. One reason for this is meaning slippage between two concepts of the gene: Mendelian and molecular. Another reason is that a variety of genetic methods address different kinds of causal relationships. Some genetic studies address causes of traits in individuals, which can only be assessed when single genes follow predictable inheritance patterns that reliably cause a trait. A second sense concerns the causes of trait differences within a population. Whereas some single genes can (...)
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  • (1 other version)Heritability.Stephen M. Downes & Lucas J. Matthews - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Lucas Matthews and I substantially revised my SEP entry on Heritability. This version includes discussion of the missing heritability problem and other issues that arise from the use of Genome Wide Association Studies by Behavioral Geneticists.
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  • In What Sense Can There Be Evolution by Natural Selection Without Perfect Inheritance?Pierrick Bourrat - 2019 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 32 (1):13-31.
    ABSTRACTIn Darwinian Population and Natural Selection, Peter Godfrey-Smith brought the topic of natural selection back to the forefront of philosophy of biology, highlighting different issues surro...
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  • The Evolutionary Gene and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.Qiaoying Lu & Pierrick Bourrat - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (3):775-800.
    Advocates of an ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’ have claimed that standard evolutionary theory fails to accommodate epigenetic inheritance. The opponents of the extended synthesis argue that the evidence for epigenetic inheritance causing adaptive evolution in nature is insufficient. We suggest that the ambiguity surrounding the conception of the gene represents a background semantic issue in the debate. Starting from Haig’s gene-selectionist framework and Griffiths and Neumann-Held’s notion of the evolutionary gene, we define senses of ‘gene’, ‘environment’, and ‘phenotype’ in a way (...)
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  • Dissolving the Missing Heritability Problem.Pierrick Bourrat & Qiaoying Lu - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (5):1055-1067.
    Heritability estimates obtained from genome-wide association studies are much lower than those of traditional quantitative methods. This phenomenon has been called the “missing heritability problem.” By analyzing and comparing GWAS and traditional quantitative methods, we first show that the estimates obtained from the latter involve some terms other than additive genetic variance, while the estimates from the former do not. Second, GWAS, when used to estimate heritability, do not take into account additive epigenetic factors transmitted across generations, while traditional quantitative (...)
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  • Exploring Relationships Among Belief in Genetic Determinism, Genetics Knowledge, and Social Factors.Niklas Gericke, Rebecca Carver, Jérémy Castéra, Neima Alice Menezes Evangelista, Claire Coiffard Marre & Charbel N. El-Hani - 2017 - Science & Education 26 (10):1223-1259.
    Genetic determinism can be described as the attribution of the formation of traits to genes, where genes are ascribed more causal power than what scientific consensus suggests. Belief in genetic determinism is an educational problem because it contradicts scientific knowledge, and is a societal problem because it has the potential to foster intolerant attitudes such as racism and prejudice against sexual orientation. In this article, we begin by investigating the very nature of belief in genetic determinism. Then, we investigate whether (...)
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  • Evolution is About Populations, But Its Causes are About Individuals.Pierrick Bourrat - 2019 - Biological Theory 14 (4):254-266.
    There is a tension between, on the one hand, the view that natural selection refers to individual-level causes, and on the other hand, the view that it refers to a population-level cause. In this article, I make the case for the individual-level cause view. I respond to recent claims made by McLoone that the individual-level cause view is inconsistent. I show that if one were to follow his arguments, any causal claim in any context would have to be regarded as (...)
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  • New historical and philosophical perspectives on quantitative genetics.Davide Serpico, Kate E. Lynch & Theodore M. Porter - 2023 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 97:29-33.
    The aim of this virtual special issue is to bring together philosophical and historical perspectives to address long-standing issues in the interpretation, utility, and impacts of quantitative genetics methods and findings. Methodological approaches and the underlying scientific understanding of genetics and heredity have transformed since the field's inception. These advances have brought with them new philosophical issues regarding the interpretation and understanding of quantitative genetic results. The contributions in this issue demonstrate that there is still work to be done integrating (...)
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  • Unifying heritability in evolutionary theory.Pierrick Bourrat - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 91 (C):201-210.
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  • Causation and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Heritability.Pierrick Bourrat - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (5):1073-1083.
    Genome-wide association studies of human complex traits have provided us with new estimates of heritability. These estimates foreground the question of genetic causation. After having presen...
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  • Heritability, causal influence and locality.Pierrick Bourrat - 2019 - Synthese 198 (7):6689-6715.
    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 (...)
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  • Natural selection and the reference grain problem.Pierrick Bourrat - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 80:1-8.
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  • Explaining Drift from a Deterministic Setting.Pierrick Bourrat - 2017 - Biological Theory 12 (1):27-38.
    Drift is often characterized in statistical terms. Yet such a purely statistical characterization is ambiguous for it can accept multiple physical interpretations. Because of this ambiguity it is important to distinguish what sorts of processes can lead to this statistical phenomenon. After presenting a physical interpretation of drift originating from the most popular interpretation of fitness, namely the propensity interpretation, I propose a different one starting from an analysis of the concept of drift made by Godfrey-Smith. Further on, I show (...)
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  • Shallow versus deep genetic causes.Adam C. Smith & Stephen M. Downes - 2023 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46:e201.
    We argue that Madole & Harden's distinction between shallow versus deep genetic causes can bring some clarity to causal claims arising from genome-wide association studies (GWASs). However, the authors argue that GWAS only finds shallow genetic causes, making GWAS commensurate with the environmental studies they hope to supplant. We also assess whether their distinction applies best to explanations or causes.
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  • Galton's Quincunx: Probabilistic causation in developmental behavior genetics.Jonathan Michael Kaplan & Eric Turkheimer - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 88 (C):60-69.
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  • Three legs of the missing heritability problem.Lucas J. Matthews & Eric Turkheimer - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 93 (C):183-191.
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  • (1 other version)Heritability.Stephen M. Downes - 2015 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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