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The Dissenter · 2025-02-20 · 53 min · 7,366 words

#1061 Lauren Ross: Causation and Explanation in Science

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The De Center. I'm your host, as always, Ricardo Lopes, and today I'm joined by Dr. Lauren Ross. She's an associate professor in the logic and philosophy of science department at the University of California, Hervine. Her research concerns explanation and causation in biology, neuroscience, and medicine, and she is also the author of a recent book, Explanation in Biology, for the Cambridge University Press Element series. So and today we're going to talk about causation and explanation. in science and the life sciences more specifically, we or with a focus on the life sciences. So, Doctor Ross, welcome to the show. It's a big pleasure to everyone. It's a huge pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

So let's start perhaps with the most basic question here. So what is causation? There is a short answer and a longer answer. And the the short answer is The Causation is control.

So causes are factors that provide control over their effects. Causal information should give us information about control. control in the world and factors in the world that have that kind of Influence.

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