Causal and Mechanistic Explanations in Ecology
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Causal and Mechanistic Explanations in Ecology Jani Raerinne
Received: 26 February 2010 / Accepted: 26 November 2010 / Published online: 5 December 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract How are scientific explanations possible in ecology, given that there do not appear to be many—if any—ecological laws? To answer this question, I present and defend an account of scientific causal explanation in which ecological generalizations are explanatory if they are invariant rather than lawlike. An invariant generalization continues to hold or be valid under a special change—called an intervention—that changes the value of its variables. According to this account, causes are difference-makers that can be intervened upon to manipulate or control their effects. I apply the account to ecological generalizations to show that invariance under interventions as a criterion of explanatory relevance provides interesting interpretations for the explanatory status of many ecological generalizations. Thus, I argue that there could be causal explanations in ecology by generalizations that are not, in a strict sense, laws. I also address the issue of mechanistic explanations in ecology by arguing that invariance and modularity constitute such explanations. Keywords Causes Invariance Laws Mechanisms Modularity Scientific explanation
1 The Ecological Laws Debate and Accounts of Scientific Explanation One of the main tasks of philosophers of science is to address how scientific explanations are possible and what is required of such explanations. In the philosophical literature these issues are discussed under ‘‘accounts’’ of scientific explanation, the most famous of which is the covering law account devised by Carl G. Hempel (1965). The covering law account has also been defended by some J. Raerinne (&) Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40 A), 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected]
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ecologists (see Peters 1983: 213–214 and 1991: 148–149; Murray 2000: 406 and 2001: 263–268). According to the covering law account, a phenomenon is explained by showing that some law covers it as a special case. In other words, phenomena are explained by subsuming them under laws. These ideas apply not only to explanations of particular phenomena or events, but also to explanations of generalizations and laws: the latter are explained or subsumed by other more general laws. The idea of the covering law account is that phenomena are explained when they are shown to happen in accordance with the laws, and therefore these laws should be mentioned in explaining the phenomena. In this sense laws are essential, indispensable, or necessary to scientific explanations. To Hempel, explanations are also arguments in which the conclusion follows either deductively or inductively from the premises. Since the 1950s, many views, examples, and arguments for and against the existence of biological laws have been present
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