Same cause, same effect? A guest blog on causation in science

by Maritza Ilich Mauseth

This is a discussion of an article by J.C. Crabbe, D. Wahlsten and B.C. Dudek on the ‘Genetics of Mouse Behavior: Interactions with Laboratory Environment‘, Science, 284, 1670-1672, 1999. It is written for the course PHI302 Causation in Science at Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Mauseth is a Master student in Ecology at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, with 170 credits in biology and an additional 15 (soon 20) credits in Philosophy. I asked her for permission to include the discussion in my blog as an example of how philosophical reflections about causation in science can be done in practice.

When a cause cannot be found

There is a philosophical problem within medicine: how to deal with causal complexity and variations. While existing methods are designed for large scale population data and sufficiently homogenous sub-groups, a number of medical conditions are characterised by their heterogenic and complex nature: low back pain (LBP), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), tension-type headache (TTH), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and many others.

One effect, many causes

Typically there’s more than one cause for an effect. Even if one causal factor seems to have contributed in particular to a certain outcome, other factors were almost certainly involved. Often we tend to forget this when we look for causes, and end up focusing too narrowly on what might only be a triggering factor.