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  1. Epistemology of causal inference in pharmacology: Towards a framework for the assessment of harms.Juergen Landes, Barbara Osimani & Roland Poellinger - 2018 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 8 (1):3-49.
    Philosophical discussions on causal inference in medicine are stuck in dyadic camps, each defending one kind of evidence or method rather than another as best support for causal hypotheses. Whereas Evidence Based Medicine advocates the use of Randomised Controlled Trials and systematic reviews of RCTs as gold standard, philosophers of science emphasise the importance of mechanisms and their distinctive informational contribution to causal inference and assessment. Some have suggested the adoption of a pluralistic approach to causal inference, and an inductive (...)
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  • The Disconnect Problem, Scientific Authority, and Climate Policy.Matthew J. Brown & Joyce C. Havstad - 2017 - Perspectives on Science 25 (1):67-94.
    The disconnect problem arises wherever there is ongoing and severe discordance between the scientific assessment of a politically relevant issue, and the politics and legislation of said issue. Here, we focus on the disconnect problem as it arises in the case of climate change, diagnosing a failure to respect the necessary tradeoff between authority and autonomy within a public institution like science. After assessing the problematic deployment of scientific authority in this arena, we offer suggestions for how to mitigate climate (...)
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  • New Directions in Philosophy of Medicine.Jacob Stegenga, Ashley Kennedy, Serife Tekin, Saana Jukola & Robyn Bluhm - 2016 - In James A. Marcum (ed.), Bloomsbury Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Medicine. New York: Bloomsbury. pp. 343-367.
    The purpose of this chapter is to describe what we see as several important new directions for philosophy of medicine. This recent work (i) takes existing discussions in important and promising new directions, (ii) identifies areas that have not received sufficient and deserved attention to date, and/or (iii) brings together philosophy of medicine with other areas of philosophy (including bioethics, philosophy of psychiatry, and social epistemology). To this end, the next part focuses on what we call the “epistemological turn” in (...)
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  • Causality, mosaics, and the health sciences.Olaf Dammann - 2016 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 37 (2):161-168.
    Thinking about illness causation has a long and rich history in medicine. After a hiatus in the 1990s, the last one-and-a-half decades have seen a surge of publications on causality in the biomedical sciences. Interestingly, this surge is visible not only in the medical, epidemiological, bioinformatics, and public health literatures, but also among philosophical publications. In this essay, I review and discuss one most recent addition to the literature, "Causality: Philosophical Theory Meets Scientific Practice" written by philosophers Phyllis Illari and (...)
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  • Three Criteria for Consensus Conferences.Jacob Stegenga - 2016 - Foundations of Science 21 (1):35-49.
    Consensus conferences are social techniques which involve bringing together a group of scientific experts, and sometimes also non-experts, in order to increase the public role in science and related policy, to amalgamate diverse and often contradictory evidence for a hypothesis of interest, and to achieve scientific consensus or at least the appearance of consensus among scientists. For consensus conferences that set out to amalgamate evidence, I propose three desiderata: Inclusivity, Constraint, and Evidential Complexity. Two examples suggest that consensus conferences can (...)
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  • Mechanisms and the Evidence Hierarchy.Brendan Clarke, Donald Gillies, Phyllis Illari, Federica Russo & Jon Williamson - 2014 - Topoi 33 (2):339-360.
    Evidence-based medicine (EBM) makes use of explicit procedures for grading evidence for causal claims. Normally, these procedures categorise evidence of correlation produced by statistical trials as better evidence for a causal claim than evidence of mechanisms produced by other methods. We argue, in contrast, that evidence of mechanisms needs to be viewed as complementary to, rather than inferior to, evidence of correlation. In this paper we first set out the case for treating evidence of mechanisms alongside evidence of correlation in (...)
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  • (1 other version)Is meta-analysis the platinum standard of evidence?Jacob Stegenga - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42 (4):497-507.
    An astonishing volume and diversity of evidence is available for many hypotheses in the biomedical and social sciences. Some of this evidence—usually from randomized controlled trials (RCTs)—is amalgamated by meta-analysis. Despite the ongoing debate regarding whether or not RCTs are the ‘gold-standard’ of evidence, it is usually meta-analysis which is considered the best source of evidence: meta-analysis is thought by many to be the platinum standard of evidence. However, I argue that meta-analysis falls far short of that standard. Different meta-analyses (...)
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  • Just a paradigm: evidence-based medicine in epistemological context.Miriam Solomon - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (3):451-466.
    Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) developed from the work of clinical epidemiologists at McMaster University and Oxford University in the 1970s and 1980s and self-consciously presented itself as a "new paradigm" called "evidence-based medicine" in the early 1990s. The techniques of the randomized controlled trial, systematic review and meta-analysis have produced an extensive and powerful body of research. They have also generated a critical literature that raises general concerns about its methods. This paper is a systematic review of the critical literature. It (...)
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  • Covid-19 and the Generation of Novel Scientific Knowledge: Evaluating and Reporting Novel Scientific Knowledge.Perillat Lucie & Baigrie Brian - 2021 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 27 (3):694-707.
    Rationale, aims and objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every facet of society, including medical research. This paper is the second part of a series of articles that explore the intricate relationship between the different challenges that have hindered biomedical research and the generation of novel scientific knowledge during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first part of this series, we demonstrated that, in the context of COVID-19, the scientific community has been faced with numerous challenges with respect to (1) finding (...)
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  • (1 other version)Economic Methodology in the Twenty-First Century (So Far): Some Post-Reflection Reflections.Douglas Wade Hands - 2020 - Revue de Philosophie Économique 20 (2):221-252.
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  • There is Cause to Randomize.Cristian Larroulet Philippi - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (1):152 - 170.
    While practitioners think highly of randomized studies, some philosophers argue that there is no epistemic reason to randomize. Here I show that their arguments do not entail their conclusion. Moreover, I provide novel reasons for randomizing in the context of interventional studies. The overall discussion provides a unified framework for assessing baseline balance, one that holds for interventional and observational studies alike. The upshot: practitioners’ strong preference for randomized studies can be defended in some cases, while still offering a nuanced (...)
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  • Causal inference in biomedical research.Tudor M. Baetu - 2020 - Biology and Philosophy 35 (4):1-19.
    Current debates surrounding the virtues and shortcomings of randomization are symptomatic of a lack of appreciation of the fact that causation can be inferred by two distinct inference methods, each requiring its own, specific experimental design. There is a non-statistical type of inference associated with controlled experiments in basic biomedical research; and a statistical variety associated with randomized controlled trials in clinical research. I argue that the main difference between the two hinges on the satisfaction of the comparability requirement, which (...)
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  • Why Be Random?Thomas Icard - 2021 - Mind 130 (517):111-139.
    When does it make sense to act randomly? A persuasive argument from Bayesian decision theory legitimizes randomization essentially only in tie-breaking situations. Rational behaviour in humans, non-human animals, and artificial agents, however, often seems indeterminate, even random. Moreover, rationales for randomized acts have been offered in a number of disciplines, including game theory, experimental design, and machine learning. A common way of accommodating some of these observations is by appeal to a decision-maker’s bounded computational resources. Making this suggestion both precise (...)
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  • Causal Inference from Noise.Nevin Climenhaga, Lane DesAutels & Grant Ramsey - 2021 - Noûs 55 (1):152-170.
    "Correlation is not causation" is one of the mantras of the sciences—a cautionary warning especially to fields like epidemiology and pharmacology where the seduction of compelling correlations naturally leads to causal hypotheses. The standard view from the epistemology of causation is that to tell whether one correlated variable is causing the other, one needs to intervene on the system—the best sort of intervention being a trial that is both randomized and controlled. In this paper, we argue that some purely correlational (...)
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  • Experimental Design: Ethics, Integrity and the Scientific Method.Jonathan Lewis - 2020 - In Ron Iphofen (ed.), Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. Springer. pp. 459-474.
    Experimental design is one aspect of a scientific method. A well-designed, properly conducted experiment aims to control variables in order to isolate and manipulate causal effects and thereby maximize internal validity, support causal inferences, and guarantee reliable results. Traditionally employed in the natural sciences, experimental design has become an important part of research in the social and behavioral sciences. Experimental methods are also endorsed as the most reliable guides to policy effectiveness. Through a discussion of some of the central concepts (...)
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  • The Confounding Question of Confounding Causes in Randomized Trials.Jonathan Fuller - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (3):901-926.
    It is sometimes thought that randomized study group allocation is uniquely proficient at producing comparison groups that are evenly balanced for all confounding causes. Philosophers have argued that in real randomized controlled trials this balance assumption typically fails. But is the balance assumption an important ideal? I run a thought experiment, the CONFOUND study, to answer this question. I then suggest a new account of causal inference in ideal and real comparative group studies that helps clarify the roles of confounding (...)
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  • Is EBM an Appropriate Model for Research into the Effectiveness of Psychotherapy?Sydney Katherine Hovda - 2019 - Topoi 38 (2):401-409.
    EBM, and the hierarchy of evidence it prescribes, is a controversial model when it comes to research into the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic treatments. This is due in part to the so-called ‘Dodo Bird verdict’, which claims that all psychotherapies are equally effective, and that their effectiveness is largely due to the placebo effect. In response to this controversy, I argue that EBM can nevertheless be made to fit research into the effectiveness of psychotherapy, once a piecemeal approach to conducting RCTs (...)
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  • Evidence amalgamation, plausibility, and cancer research.Marta Bertolaso & Fabio Sterpetti - 2019 - Synthese 196 (8):3279-3317.
    Cancer research is experiencing ‘paradigm instability’, since there are two rival theories of carcinogenesis which confront themselves, namely the somatic mutation theory and the tissue organization field theory. Despite this theoretical uncertainty, a huge quantity of data is available thanks to the improvement of genome sequencing techniques. Some authors think that the development of new statistical tools will be able to overcome the lack of a shared theoretical perspective on cancer by amalgamating as many data as possible. We think instead (...)
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  • (1 other version)Hunting Side Effects and Explaining Them: Should We Reverse Evidence Hierarchies Upside Down?Barbara Osimani - 2014 - Topoi 33 (2):295-312.
    Philosophical discussions have critically analysed the methodological pitfalls and epistemological implications of evidence assessment in medicine, however they have mainly focused on evidence of treatment efficacy. Most of this work is devoted to statistical methods of causal inference with a special attention to the privileged role assigned to randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in evidence based medicine. Regardless of whether the RCT’s privilege holds for efficacy assessment, it is nevertheless important to make a distinction between causal inference of intended and unintended (...)
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  • Towards the Methodological Turn in the Philosophy of Science.Hsiang-Ke Chao, Szu-Ting Chen & Roberta L. Millstein - 2013 - In Hsiang-Ke Chao, Szu-Ting Chen & Roberta L. Millstein (eds.), Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics. Dordrecht: Springer.
    This chapter provides an introduction to the study of the philosophical notions of mechanisms and causality in biology and economics. This chapter sets the stage for this volume, Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics, in three ways. First, it gives a broad review of the recent changes and current state of the study of mechanisms and causality in the philosophy of science. Second, consistent with a recent trend in the philosophy of science to focus on scientific practices, it in (...)
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  • Evidence in medicine and evidence-based medicine.John Worrall - 2007 - Philosophy Compass 2 (6):981–1022.
    It is surely obvious that medicine, like any other rational activity, must be based on evidence. The interest is in the details: how exactly are the general principles of the logic of evidence to be applied in medicine? Focussing on the development, and current claims of the ‘Evidence-Based Medicine’ movement, this article raises a number of difficulties with the rationales that have been supplied in particular for the ‘evidence hierarchy’ and for the very special role within that hierarchy of randomized (...)
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  • Conceptual challenges for interpretable machine learning.David S. Watson - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-33.
    As machine learning has gradually entered into ever more sectors of public and private life, there has been a growing demand for algorithmic explainability. How can we make the predictions of complex statistical models more intelligible to end users? A subdiscipline of computer science known as interpretable machine learning (IML) has emerged to address this urgent question. Numerous influential methods have been proposed, from local linear approximations to rule lists and counterfactuals. In this article, I highlight three conceptual challenges that (...)
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  • The Role of Randomization in Bayesian and Frequentist Design of Clinical Trial.Paola Berchialla, Dario Gregori & Ileana Baldi - 2019 - Topoi 38 (2):469-475.
    A key role in inference is played by randomization, which has been extensively used in clinical trials designs. Randomization is primarily intended to prevent the source of bias in treatment allocation by producing comparable groups. In the frequentist framework of inference, randomization allows also for the use of probability theory to express the likelihood of chance as a source for the difference of end outcome. In the Bayesian framework, its role is more nuanced. The Bayesian analysis of clinical trials can (...)
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  • An Epistemic Analysis of the Precautionary Principle.Barbara Osimani - unknown
    The paper addresses charges of risk and loss aversion as well as of irrationality directed against the precautionary principle, by providing an epistemic analysis of its specific role in the safety law system. In particular, I contend that: 1) risk aversion is not a form of irrational or biased behaviour; 2) both risk and loss aversion regard the form of the utility function, whereas PP rather regards the information on which to base the decision; 3) thus PP has formally nothing (...)
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  • From the Characterization of ‘European Philosophy of Science’ to the Case of Philosophy of the Social Sciences.Wenceslao J. Gonzalez - 2015 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 29 (2):167-188.
    How distinct is European philosophy of science? The first step is to characterize what is or might be considered as ‘European philosophy of science’. The second is to analyse philosophy of the social sciences as a relevant case in the European contribution to philosophy of science. ‘European perspective’ requires some clarification, which can be done from two main angles: the historical approach and the thematic view. Thus, there are several structural and dynamic things to be considered in European philosophy of (...)
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  • The Role of Measurement in Establishing Evidence.L. McClimans - 2013 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 38 (5):520-538.
    Measurement outcomes are frequently used as evidence in favor of or against medical and surgical interventions, health policies, and system designs. Indeed, in the medical and health services research literature, outcomes are the currency of policy debate and decision making. Yet in the philosophy of science and philosophy of medicine, the measures used in evidence-based medicine (EBM) are rarely discussed. Rather, the focus here is almost exclusively on study design and hierarchies of evidence. This concentration on the methodology of study (...)
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  • Why Randomized Interventional Studies.Adam La Caze - 2013 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 38 (4):352-368.
    A number of arguments have shown that randomization is not essential in experimental design. Scientific conclusions can be drawn on data from experimental designs that do not involve randomization. John Worrall has recently taken proponents of randomized studies to task for suggesting otherwise. In doing so, however, Worrall makes an additional claim: randomized interventional studies are epistemologically equivalent to observational studies, providing the experimental groups are comparable according to background knowledge. I argue against this claim. In the context of testing (...)
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  • Gender Issues in Corporate Leadership.Devora Shapiro & Marilea Bramer - 2013 - Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics:1177-1189.
    Gender greatly impacts access to opportunities, potential, and success in corporate leadership roles. We begin with a general presentation of why such discussion is necessary for basic considerations of justice and fairness in gender equality and how the issues we raise must impact any ethical perspective on gender in the corporate workplace. We continue with a breakdown of the central categories affecting the success of women in corporate leadership roles. The first of these includes gender-influenced behavioral factors, such as the (...)
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  • Gauge symmetry and the Theta vacuum.Richard Healey - 2009 - In Mauricio Suárez, Mauro Dorato & Miklós Rédei (eds.), EPSA Philosophical Issues in the Sciences · Launch of the European Philosophy of Science Association. Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer. pp. 105--116.
    According to conventional wisdom, local gauge symmetry is not a symmetry of nature, but an artifact of how our theories represent nature. But a study of the so-called theta-vacuum appears to refute this view. The ground state of a quantized non-Abelian Yang-Mills gauge theory is characterized by a real-valued, dimensionless parameter theta—a fundamental new constant of nature. The structure of this vacuum state is often said to arise from a degeneracy of the vacuum of the corresponding classical theory, which degeneracy (...)
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  • Inferential Pluralism in Causal Reasoning from Randomized Experiments.Tudor M. Baetu - 2022 - Acta Biotheoretica 70 (4):1-20.
    Causal pluralism can be defended not only in respect to causal concepts and methodological guidelines, but also at the finer-grained level of causal inference from a particular source of evidence for causation. An argument for this last variety of pluralism is made based on an analysis of causal inference from randomized experiments (RCTs). Here, the causal interpretation of a statistically significant association can be established via multiple paths of reasoning, each relying on different assumptions and providing distinct elements of information (...)
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  • (1 other version)Assessing the Overall Validity of Randomised Controlled Trials.Alexander Krauss - 2021 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 34 (3):159-182.
    In the biomedical, behavioural and social sciences, the leading method used to estimate causal effects is commonly randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that are generally viewed as both the source and justification of the most valid evidence. In studying the foundation and theory behind RCTs, the existing literature analyses important single issues and biases in isolation that influence causal outcomes in trials (such as randomisation, statistical probabilities and placebos). The common account of biased causal inference is described in a general way (...)
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  • Etiological Explanations: Illness Causation Theory.Olaf Dammann - 2020 - Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press.
    Theory of illness causation is an important issue in all biomedical sciences, and solid etiological explanations are needed in order to develop therapeutic approaches in medicine and preventive interventions in public health. Until now, the literature about the theoretical underpinnings of illness causation research has been scarce and fragmented, and lacking a convenient summary. This interdisciplinary book provides a convenient and accessible distillation of the current status of research into this developing field, and adds a personal flavor to the discussion (...)
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  • Establishing Causal Claims in Medicine.Jon Williamson - 2019 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 32 (1):33-61.
    Russo and Williamson put forward the following thesis: in order to establish a causal claim in medicine, one normally needs to establish both that the putative cause and putative effect are appropriately correlated and that there is some underlying mechanism that can account for this correlation. I argue that, although the Russo-Williamson thesis conflicts with the tenets of present-day evidence-based medicine, it offers a better causal epistemology than that provided by present-day EBM because it better explains two key aspects of (...)
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  • Randomized Controlled Trials for Diagnostic Imaging: Conceptual and Pratical Problems.Elisabetta Lalumera & Stefano Fanti - 2019 - Topoi 38 (2):395-400.
    We raise a problem of applicability of RCTs to validate nuclear diagnostic imaging tests. In spite of the wide application of PET and other similar techniques that use radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic purposes, RCT-based evidence on their validity is sparse. We claim that this is due to a general conceptual problem that we call Prevalence of Treatment, which arises in connection with designing RCTs for testing any diagnostic procedure in the present context of medical research, and is particularly apparent in this (...)
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  • Scientism in Medical Education and the Improvement of Medical Care: Opioids, Competencies, and Social Accountability.Lynette Reid - 2018 - Health Care Analysis 26 (2):155-170.
    Scientism in medical education distracts educators from focusing on the content of learning; it focuses attention instead on individual achievement and validity in its measurement. I analyze the specific form that scientism takes in medicine and in medical education. The competencies movement attempts to challenge old “scientistic” views of the role of physicians, but in the end it has invited medical educators to focus on validity in the measurement of individual performance for attitudes and skills that medicine resists conceptualizing as (...)
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  • How necessary are randomized controlled trials?Robert Northcott - 1992 - In Ronald Munson (ed.), Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics. pp. 187-191.
    This short review piece is from a textbook on Medical Ethics.
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  • Comparative syllogism and counterfactual knowledge.Linton Wang & Wei-Fen Ma - 2014 - Synthese 191 (6):1327-1348.
    Comparative syllogism is a type of scientific reasoning widely used, explicitly or implicitly, for inferences from observations to conclusions about effectiveness, but its philosophical significance has not been fully elaborated or appreciated. In its simplest form, the comparative syllogism derives a conclusion about the effectiveness of a factor (e.g. a treatment or an exposure) on a certain property via an experiment design using a test (experimental) group and a comparison (control) group. Our objective is to show that the comparative syllogism (...)
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  • A Tool-Based View of Theories of Evidence.Chien-Yang Huang - 2020 - Dissertation, Durham University
    Philosophical theories of evidence have been on offer, but they are mostly evaluated in terms of all-or-none desiderata — if they fail to meet one of the desiderata, they are not a satisfactory theory. In this thesis, I aim to accomplish three missions. Firstly, I construct a new way of evaluating theories of evidence, which I call a tool-based view. Secondly, I analyse the nature of what I will call the various relevance-mediating vehicles that each theory of evidence employs. Thirdly, (...)
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  • Ethical and Scientific Issues in Cancer Screening and Prevention.Anya Plutynski - 2012 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 37 (3):310-323.
    November 2009’s announcement of the USPSTF’s recommendations for screening for breast cancer raised a firestorm of objections. Chief among them were that the panel had insufficiently valued patients’ lives or allowed cost considerations to influence recommendations. The publicity about the recommendations, however, often either simplified the actual content of the recommendations or bypassed significant methodological issues, which a philosophical examination of both the science behind screening recommendations and their import reveals. In this article, I discuss two of the leading ethical (...)
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  • What Counts as 'What Works': Expertise, Mechanisms and Values in Evidence-Based Medicine.Sarah Wieten - 2018 - Dissertation, Durham University
    My doctoral project is a study of epistemological and ethical issues in Evidence-Based Medicine, a movement in medicine which emphasizes the use of randomized controlled trials. Much of the research on EBM suggests that, for a large part of the movement's history, EBM considered expertise, mechanisms, and values to be forces contrary to its goals and has sought to remove them, both from medical research and from the clinical encounter. I argue, however, that expertise, mechanisms and values have important epistemological (...)
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  • Psychopathy: Morally Incapacitated Persons.Heidi Maibom - 2017 - In Thomas Schramme & Steven Edwards (eds.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine. Springer. pp. 1109-1129.
    After describing the disorder of psychopathy, I examine the theories and the evidence concerning the psychopaths’ deficient moral capacities. I first examine whether or not psychopaths can pass tests of moral knowledge. Most of the evidence suggests that they can. If there is a lack of moral understanding, then it has to be due to an incapacity that affects not their declarative knowledge of moral norms, but their deeper understanding of them. I then examine two suggestions: it is their deficient (...)
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  • Vulnerable due to hope: aspiration paradox as a cross-cultural concern.Eric Palmer - 2014 - Conference Publication, International Development Ethics Association 10th Conference: Development Ethics Contributions for a Socially Sustainable Future.
    (Conference proceedings 2014) This presentation (International Development Ethics Association, July 2014) considers economic vulnerability, exploring the risk of deprivation of necessary resources due to a complex and rarely discussed vulnerability that arises from hope. Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological account of French petit-bourgeois aspiration in The Social Structures of the Economy has recently inspired Wendy Olsen to introduce the term “aspiration paradox” to characterize cases wherein “a borrower's status aspirations may contribute to a situation in which their borrowings exceed their capacity to (...)
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  • (1 other version)Why Experimental Balance Is Still a Reason to Randomize.Marco Martinez & David Teira - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    Experimental balance is usually understood as the control for the value of the conditions, other than the one under study, which are liable to affect the result of a test. We discuss three different approaches to balance. ‘Millean balance’ requires identifying and equalizing ex ante the value of these conditions in order to conduct solid causal inferences. ‘Fisherian balance’ measures ex post the influence of uncontrolled conditions through the analysis of variance. In ‘efficiency balance’ the value of the antecedent conditions (...)
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  • What’s in a gold standard? In defence of randomised controlled trials.Marius Backmann - 2017 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 20 (4):513-523.
    The standardised randomised clinical trial (RCT) has been exceedingly popular in medical research, economics, and practical policy making. Recently, RCTs have faced criticism. First, it has been argued by John Worrall that we cannot be certain that our sample is not atypical with regard to possible confounding factors. I will argue that at least in the case of medical research, we know enough about the relevant causal mechanisms to be justified to ignore a number of factors we have good reason (...)
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  • The application of Cartwright's concept of capacities to complex interventions in psychiatry.Dieneke Hubbeling - 2012 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (5):1013-1018.
    Cartwright and Munro argued that extrapolation of findings from randomized controlled trials to other settings can be difficult because information about the underlying causal structure and subgroups is often not available. They advocated the use of ‘capacities’ – that is fixed causal contributions – in predicting effects of interventions. In psychiatry, it is often not possible to determine what the fixed causal contributions are and one can only establish ‘approximate capacities’. However, using ‘approximate capacities’ does imply a different way of (...)
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  • Un análisis epistémico del principio de precaución.Barbara Osimani - 2013 - Dilemata 11:149-167.
    The paper addresses charges of risk and loss aversion as well as of irrationality directed against the precautionary principle (PP), by providing an epistemic analysis of its specific role in the safety law system. In particular, I contend that: 1) risk aversion is not a form of irrational or biased behaviour; 2) both risk and loss aversion regard the form of the utility function, whereas PP rather regards the information on which to base the decision; 3) thus PP has formally (...)
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  • Hierarchies of evidence in evidence-based medicine.Christopher Blunt - 2015 - Dissertation, London School of Economics
    Hierarchies of evidence are an important and influential tool for appraising evidence in medicine. In recent years, hierarchies have been formally adopted by organizations including the Cochrane Collaboration [1], NICE [2,3], the WHO [4], the US Preventive Services Task Force [5], and the Australian NHMRC [6,7]. The development of such hierarchies has been regarded as a central part of Evidence-Based Medicine, a movement within healthcare which prioritises the use of epidemiological evidence such as that provided by Randomised Controlled Trials. Philosophical (...)
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  • Until RCT proven? On the asymmetry of evidence requirements for risk assessment.Barbara Osimani - 2013 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 19 (3):454-462.
    The problem of collecting, analyzing and evaluating evidence on adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is an example of the more general class of epistemological problems related to scientific inference and prediction, as well as a central problem of the health-care practice. Philosophical discussions have critically analysed the methodological pitfalls and epistemological implications of evidence assessment in medicine, however they have mainly focused on evidence of treatment efficacy. Most of this work is devoted to statistical methods of causal inference with a special (...)
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  • (1 other version)Evidence-Based Medicine Must Be ..A. La Caze - 2009 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 34 (5):509-527.
    Proponents of evidence-based medicine (EBM) provide the “hierarchy of evidence” as a criterion for judging the reliability of therapeutic decisions. EBM's hierarchy places randomized interventional studies (and systematic reviews of such studies) higher in the hierarchy than observational studies, unsystematic clinical experience, and basic science. Recent philosophical work has questioned whether EBM's special emphasis on evidence from randomized interventional studies can be justified. Following the critical literature, and in particular the work of John Worrall, I agree that many of the (...)
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  • (1 other version)Evidence‐Based Medicine Can’t Be….Adam La Caze - 2008 - Social Epistemology 22 (4):353 – 370.
    Evidence-based medicine (EBM) puts forward a hierarchy of evidence for informing therapeutic decisions. An unambiguous interpretation of how to apply EBM's hierarchy has not been provided in the clinical literature. However, as much as an interpretation is provided proponents suggest a categorical interpretation. The categorical interpretation holds that all the results of randomised trials always trump evidence from lower down the hierarchy when it comes to informing therapeutic decisions. Most of the critical replies to EBM react to this interpretation. While (...)
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