Notes
Illari and Russo use the “mosaic” metaphor for their proposed causal pluralist mosaic (see below and their chapter 23).
In brief, the Russo–Williamson thesis suggests that causal claims in the health sciences need to be supported by evidence of difference-making and evidence of mechanism. This framework, which has come to be called the Russo–Williamson thesis [11, 22], has recently been discussed and criticized by philosophers [23–26].
For an interesting alternative position, see [32].
If this is indeed what those who do exposomics research think they do, “exposomics” is a misnomer and should be replaced with “exposology.” If, instead, exposomics is what the term denotes, it is the idea to consider all lifetime exposures and their individual and joint health effects (see [36] for a concise discussion of exposomics in light of multiple other –omics approaches).
References
Feezer, L.W. 1921. Theories concerning the causation of disease. American Journal of Public Health 11(10): 908–912.
Susser, M.W. 1973. Causal thinking in the health sciences: Concepts and strategies of epidemiology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nordenfelt, L., and B.I.B. Lindahl. 1984. Health, disease, and causal explanations in medicine. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Evans, A.S. 1993. Causation and disease: A chronological journey. New York: Plenum.
Kerry, R., T.E. Eriksen, S.A. Lie, S.D. Mumford, and R.L. Anjum. 2012. Causation and evidence-based practice: An ontological review. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18(5): 1006–1012.
Parascandola, M., and D.L. Weed. 2001. Causation in epidemiology. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 55(12): 905–912.
Mandel, J., N.M. Palfreyman, J.A. Lopez, and W. Dubitzky. 2004. Representing bioinformatics causality. Briefings in Bioinformatics 5(3): 270–283.
Glass, T.A., S.N. Goodman, M.A. Hernán, and J.M. Samet. 2013. Causal inference in public health. Annual Review Public Health 34: 61–75.
Thagard, P. 1999. How scientists explain disease. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Thygesen, L.C., G.S. Andersen, and H. Andersen. 2005. A philosophical analysis of the Hill criteria. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 59(6): 512–516.
Russo, F., and J. Williamson. 2007. Interpreting causality in the health sciences. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 21(2): 157–170.
Woodward, J. 2010. Causation in biology: Stability, specificity, and the choice of levels of explanation. Biology and Philosophy 25(3): 287–318.
Kincaid, H. 2011. Causal modelling, mechanism, and probability in epidemiology. In Causality in the sciences, ed. P. Illari, F. Russo, and J. Williamson, 70–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Clarke, B., D. Gillies, P. Illari, F. Russo, and J. Williamson. 2013. The evidence that evidence-based medicine omits. Preventive Medicine 57(6): 745–747.
Broadbent, A. 2013. Philosophy of epidemiology. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Illari, P.M., and F. Russo. 2014. Causality: Philosophical theory meets scientific practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Beebee, H., C. Hitchcock, and P.C. Menzies. 2009. The Oxford handbook of causation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hill, A.B. 1965. The environment and disease: Association or causation? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 58: 295–300.
Rothman, K.J. 1976. Causes. American Journal of Epidemiology 104: 87–92.
Rose, G. 1985. Sick individuals and sick populations. International Journal of Epidemiology 14(1): 32–38.
Mackie, J.L. 1965. Causes and conditions. American Philosophical Quarterly 2(4): 245–264.
Russo, F., and J. Williamson. 2011. Generic versus single-case causality: The case of autopsy. European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1: 47–69.
Broadbent, A. 2011. Inferring causation in epidemiology: Mechanisms, black boxes, and contrasts. In Causality in the sciences, ed. P.M. Illari, F. Russo, and J. Williamson, 45–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Illari, P.M. 2011. Mechanistic evidence: Disambiguating the Russo–Williamson thesis. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25: 139–157.
Claveau, F. 2012. The Russo–Williamson Theses in the social sciences: Causal inference drawing on two types of evidence. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43(4): 806–813.
Fiorentino, A.R., and O. Dammann. 2015. Evidence, disease, and causation: An epidemiologic perspective on the Russo–Williamson thesis. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 54: 1–9.
Holland, P.W. 1986. Statistics and causal inference. Journal of the American Statistical Association 81(396): 945–960.
Rubin, D.B. 2005. Causal inference using potential outcomes: Design, modeling, decisions. Journal of the American Statistical Association 100(469): 322–331.
Hernán, M.A., and J.M. Robins. 2006. Estimating causal effects from epidemiologic data. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60: 578–586.
Hernán, M.A., and J.M. Robins. 2006. Instruments for causal inference: An epidemiologist’s dream? Epidemiology 17(4): 360–372.
Imbens, G., and D.B. Rubin. 2015. Causal inference for statistics, social, and biomedical sciences: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Worrall, J. 2007. Why there’s no cause to randomize. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58(3): 451–488.
Lewis, D.K. 1986. Philosophical papers, vol. II. New York: Oxford University Press.
Charlton, B.G. 1996. Attribution of causation in epidemiology: Chain or mosaic? Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 49(1): 105–107.
Craver, C.F. 2007. Explaining the brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Coughlin, S.S. 2014. Toward a road map for global-omics: A primer on-omic technologies. American Journal of Epidemiology 180(12): 1188–1195.
Schulte, P.A., and F.P. Perera. 1993. Molecular epidemiology: Principles and practices. San Diego: Academic Press.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to James A. Marcum for more than just a few suggestions on how to improve this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dammann, O. Causality, mosaics, and the health sciences. Theor Med Bioeth 37, 161–168 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-016-9360-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-016-9360-1