Assessing the role of evidence of mechanisms in causal extrapolation

  1. Saúl Pérez-González 1
  2. Valeriano Iranzo 1
  1. 1 Universitat de València
    info

    Universitat de València

    Valencia, España

    ROR https://ror.org/043nxc105

Revista:
Theoria: an international journal for theory, history and foundations of science

ISSN: 0495-4548

Año de publicación: 2021

Volumen: 36

Número: 2

Páginas: 211-228

Tipo: Artículo

DOI: 10.1387/THEORIA.21642 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

Otras publicaciones en: Theoria: an international journal for theory, history and foundations of science

Resumen

La extrapolación de relaciones causales de poblaciones de estudio a otras poblaciones de interés es una cuestión problemática. El procedimiento estándar en investigación experimental, el cual prioriza los en- sayos controlados aleatorizados y la evidencia estadística, no está carente de dificultades. Dada esta situación, se ha planteado que la evidencia de mecanismos es indispensable para la extrapolación causal. Nosotros argumentamos que, por el contrario, este tipo de evidencia no es indispensable. Sin embargo, pensamos que puede ser de ayuda en ciertas ocasiones. Para clarificar su relevancia, distinguimos entre el rol positivo y el rol negativo de la evidencia de mecanismos. Nuestra conclusión es que el primero es altamente cuestionable, pero el segundo puede ser un recurso fiable para la extrapolación.

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Información de financiación

We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Spanish Ministry of Universities under grant FPU16/03274 (Saúl Pérez-González), and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under research projects FFI2016-76799-P (Valeriano Iranzo) and FFI2017-89639-P (Saúl Pérez-González).

Financiadores

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