SEP, Scientic Explanation

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientic-explanation/

Nayuta Miki Jan/24/2012

Background
Contrast and continuation between scientic and ordinary explanation. Examples from ordinary life are often taken seriously. Many philosophers, especially DN theorists, think of concepts like explanation, law, cause, and support for counterfactuals as part of an interrelated family or circle of concepts that are modal in character. They assume that it is circular to explain one of them in terms of others and prefer the Humean account of causation and related concepts.

The Deductive-Nomological Model

The Basic Idea An explanandum is a sentence that describes the phenomenon to be explained. Explanans are the class of those sentences that are adduced, or cited, to account for the phenomenon. the DN model The explanans successfully explain the explanandum i 1. The explanandum is a logical consequence of the explanans. 2. The sentences constituting the explanans are true. 3. The explanans contain at least one law of nature as an essential premise (without it, the derivation would be unvalid).

Problems What counts as a law? Is Mendels law, which has exceptions, a law? Do stastical laws explain and if so how? Hempel(1965):

 Deductive-statistical explanation: Involving the deduction of a narrower stastical uniformity from a more general premises. Inductive-statistical explanation: An explanation is successful to the extent that its explanans cofers high probability on its explanandum outcome. A counterexample to necessity: The impact of my knee on the desk caused the tipping over of the inkwell. (Scriven 1962) Hempel(1965): the use of caused implicitly claims there is a law (the hidden structure strategy). Suppose that we are presented with an explanation from econimics that does not appeal to any generalization that can be counted as a law but that underlying this non-ideal explanation is some incredibly complex set of facts described in terms of classical mechanics and electromagnetism. If this underlying explanation is computationally intractable and full of irrelevant detail, in what sense it is an ideal against which the original explanation should be measured? Assume that an explanation provides understanding. Many users of non-ideal explanations typically doesnt know the hidden structure. Then how does it contribute to understanding? It seems that what makes a non-ideal explanation an explanation must be features that can be known by those who use the explanation. Conterexamples to suciency: 1. Explanatory Asymmetories: Explanandum: the hight of a agpole Explanans: the length of the shadow cast by the pole, the angle of the sun above the horizon, laws about the rectilinear propagation of light. This satises the DN criteria but doesnt seem explanatory. 2. Explanatory Irrelevancies: Explanandum: John Jones fails to get pregnant. Explanans: All males who take birth control pills regularly fail to get pregnant (law), John Jones is a male who has been taking birth control pills regularly a derivation can satisfy the DN criteria and yet fail to identify the causes of an explanandumwhen this happens the derivation will fail to be explanatory. Or we can put it in this way: the regularity account of causation favored by DN theorists is at best incomplete.

The Statistical Relevance Model (Salmon 1971)

The Basic Idea Given some class A, an attribute C will be statistically relevant to another attribute B if and only if P (B | A.C) = P (B | A). The SR Model (intuitive) Statistically relevant properties are explanatory. Statistically irrelevant properties are not. A homogeneous partition of a class A is a set of subclassesCi of A that are mutually exclusive and exhaustive such that i, j[i = jRightarrowP (B | A.Ci ) = P (B | A.Cj )] Dk A[P (B | A.Ci ) = P (B | A.Ci .Dk ) No further statistically relevant partition can be made with respect to B. The SR Model An explanation of why some member x of the class characterized by attribute A has attribute B consists of the following information: 1. The prior probability of B within A 2. A homogeneous partition of A with respect to B, together wit the probability of B within each cell of the partition 3. The cell of the partition o which x belongs *No reference is made to the values of the relevant probabilities.

Example S: having a strep infection Q: recovering quickly T : treated with penicillin R haveng a penicillin-resistant strain Assume that P (Q | S.T.R) = P (Q | S.-T.R) = P (Q | S.-T.-R) = P (Q | S.T.-R) Then [S.(T.R -T.R -T.-R)], [S.T.-R] is a homogenous partition of S with respect to Q. An SR explanation of why x who has a strep infection recovers quickly consists of 1. a statement of the probability of quick recovery among all those with strep 2. a statement of the probability of recovery in each of the two cells of the above partition

3. a statement of the cell to which x belongs, which is [S.T.-R].

*the cell to which x belongs is said to be S.T.R in the text. But I think it is a mistake.

Notice that the same explanans will explain both shy a subject with strep and certain other properties recovers quickly if he does, and also why he does not recover if he does not. Problems 1. It is dubious that the sorts of statistical explanation found in the social abd biomedical sciences satisfy the homogeneity condition. 2. The SR model assumes that what is explained is an individual fact, such as Albert becoming a juvenile deliquent. But we can think that what is explained is not an individual fact but a more general one, such as why the expected incidence of deliquence is higher among certain subgroups than others. If this is correct, there is no obvious need for a separate theory of statistical explanation of individual outomes of the sort that Hempel and Salmon sought to devise. 3. In order to bridge causal claims and statistical relevance relations, Salmon assumes Causal Markov condition. Causal Markov condition: A pair, (G, P ), of a directed acyclic graph G and a probability distribution P satises the Causal Markov condition For each node, X, of G, conditional on the set of all parents of X, {X} and the set of non-descendants of X are independent. There are problems on this condition: When the variables are characterized in an insuciently ne-grained way, this condition fails to hold. The Causal Markov condition underdetermines causal relationships. The situation where A is a common cause of B and S and the one where B causes A that, in turn, causes S can have the same statistical relevance relationships. In both cases, P (S | A.B) = P (S | A).

B A S B

A S

The Causal Mechanical Model (Salmon 1984)

The Basi Idea A causal process is a physical process that is characterized by the ability to transmit a mark (e.g., a dent in an automobile fender) in a continuous way. A causal interaction is a spatio-temporal intersection between two causal processes which modies the structure of both (e.g., a collision between two cars that dents both). The CM Model An explanation of some event E will trace the causal processes and interactions leading up to E, or at least some portion of these, as well as describing the processes and interaction that make up the event itself. e.g., Suppose that a cue ball, set in motion by the mpact of a cue stick, strikes a stationary eight ball with the result that the eight ball is put in motion and the cue bal changes direction. The impact of the stick also transmits some blue chalk to the cue ball, which is then transferred to the eight ball on impact. The cue stick, the cue ball, and the eight ball ar causal processes, as is shown by the transmission of the chalk mark, and the collision of the cue stick with the cue ball and the collision of the cue and eight balls are causal interactions. [...] citing such facts about processes and interactions explains the motion of the balls after the collision. Problems 1. Those features of a process P in virtue of which it qualies as a causal process may not be the features of P that are causally or explanatorily relevant to the outcome E that we want to explain (Hitchcock 1995). The usual elementary textbook scientic explanation of the motino of the balls following their collision refers to the mass and velocity of the balls rahter than their color or the presence of the blue chalk mark. They are all marks that makes the process involving them causal (according to Salmons denition), but only some are explanatory relevant. Salmon (1994): A causal process is a process that transmits a non-zero amount of a conserved quantity at each moment, which is dened as a quantity so characterized in physics. Still the same problem arises. Why the linear momentum of a moving ball is causally relevant while other conserved quantities are not? Furthermore, there are many cases in which the explanatorily relevant variables are not conserved quantities. Salmon (1997): Both of statistical relevance relations and connectiong causal processes are required for an explanation. Both of them are insucient to pick out explanatorily relevant causal relationships. No reason to assume that this new proposal work well. 5

2. Cases that lack a spatio-temporal interaction at the individual level (explanations involving complex systems): Newtonian gravitational theory which involve action at a distance. Causation by omission. e.g., I killed the plant by not watering it. The expansion of gas into a larger container from a smaller one. Standard explanations refer not to the causal processes and interactions of molecules but to the overall behavior of the gas. This treatment abstracts radically from the details of the causal processes involving particular individual molecules and instead focuses on identifying higher level variables. Even if an account that traced individual molecular trajectories were to be produced, a great deal of the information it contains will be irrelevant to the behavior of the gas.