Are mechanisms required to establish treatment effects?
Prof Jon Williamson (University of Kent at Canterbury), Dr. Jeremy Howick (University of Oxford)

March 27, 2017, 2:00pm - 3:30pm
Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford

Sadler Room
Rewley House
Oxford OX1 2JA
United Kingdom

This will be an accessible event, including organized related activities

Details

An enduring debate in the history of medicine exists between people who believe that we need to know how a treatment works in order to know that it works and those who believe that careful observation is enough.

Recently, a ‘new mechanical philosophy’ has emerged, with some philosophers of science arguing that unless we have evidence of a mechanism that a treatment works, we do not know whether it works. This philosophical view is opposed to a view commonly held by proponents of Evidenvce-Based Medicine (EBM) who point out many historical cases ranging from lemons to cure scurvy to aspirin reducing cancer incidence where we have no idea what the mechanism is yet we believe we know the treatments work.

 In an epic attempt to resolve this long-standing debate once and for all, leading contemporary proponents of each view will make their cases:

Professor Jon Williamson will argue that we do need to have evidence of mechanisms in order to prove treatment works.

Dr. Jeremy Howick will argue that while evidence of mechanisms can be useful, they are not required to establish that a treatment works.

This is a free event and tickets can be booked at the link below.

Supporting material

Add supporting material (slides, programs, etc.)

Reminders

Registration

Yes

March 24, 2017, 1:00pm BST

External Site

Who is attending?

No one has said they will attend yet.

Will you attend this event?


Let us know so we can notify you of any change of plan.

RSVPing on PhilEvents is not sufficient to register for this event.