Causality and experimentation in the Sciences (CaEitS)

This is the eighth conference in the Causality in the Sciences series of conferences.

Causality plays a central role in the sciences. Causal inference (finding out what causes what) and causal explanation (explaining how a cause produces its effect) are major scientific tasks in fields as diverse as astrophysics, biochemistry, biomedical or social sciences. Experimentation is probably the best way to get at causal knowledge. Relatedly, there has recently been a diversification of experimental practices in the sciences, most obviously with the rapid growth of computational science, but also with the extension of more conventional experimental practices to new domains, such as e.g. important parts of economics. This raises important questions: What are the relevant distinctions between different experimental practices?, or what counts as experimentation today?

Previous conferences in the Causality in the Sciences series have investigated the relationship between causality and challenging concepts such as probability or mechanisms. This one will focus on the relationship between causality and experimentation. This involves questions about the foundations of the sciences, such as what are the prospects of an interventionist definition of causation, or is experimentation required for causal knowledge? But it also involves questions raised by specific scientific practices, e.g. do computer simulations license the same kind of causal claims as usual experimental practices do, or what is the scope of causal conclusions drawn from randomized controlled trials?

These questions are all of important current concern. Much work and money is spent in developing new experimental practices and it is important to determine how exactly experiments of different types can contribute to our causal knowledge and to our capacity to act on the things this knowledge is about.

Timetable

• 1st June 2013: deadline for receipt of early-bird registration

1. Early-bird registration fees: 30 euros.
2. Late registration fees: 60 euros.
3. Details of registration and payment are on the website.

PROGRAMME

Monday, July 1st 2013

• 9h15 Registration and welcome
• 10h Tamar KUSHNIR, Cornell University - Children Use Social Knowledge to form a « Theory of Evidence »
• Coffee break
• 11h30 Matthias EGG, University of Lausanne - Non-local Causality in EPR-type Experiments
• 12h Matt FARR, University of Sydney - Causation and Initial Conditions in Time-Reversal Symmetric Physics
• Lunch break
• 14h Peter SPIRTES, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh - Causal Search Algorithms, Graphical Models, and Experimentation
• 15h Dylan HUTCHISON and Samantha KLEINBERG, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken - Causal Inference under Uncertainty via adjustments and SOPDs
• 15h30 Michael BAUMGARTNER, University of Osnabrück - Is It Possible to Experimentally Reveal non-reductive Mental Causation?
• Coffee break
• 16h30 Alexandre MARCELLESI, University of California, San Diego - Interventionism: Don’t Believe the Hype!
• 17h Alexander REUTLINGER, University of Cologne - Interventions, Counterfactuals and the Open-systems Argument
• 17h30 Alexander GEBHARTER, University of Düsseldorf - Old and New Problems for Woodward’s Interventionist Theory of Causation

Tuesday, July 2nd 2013

• 9h30 Marcel WEBER, Université de Genève - Is Causal Inference All You Need in Experimental Biology?
• 10h30 Marcus MISSAL, Université Catholique de Louvain - Causality and Prediction in the Oculomotor System
• Coffee break
• 11h30 Maria KRONFELDNER, University of Bielefeld - Norms of Reactions and Causal Explanation: The Tenacity of the ‘Genes for’ Approach and Two Kinds of Reconstituting the Phenomena
• 12h Phyllis ILLARI, University College London and Federica RUSSO, Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Information and Biomarkers of Disease
• Lunch break
• 14h Francesco GUALA, University of Milan - Experiments as Measurement Tools: from Economics to Anthropology
• 15h Tobias HENSCHEN, University of Heidelberg - Some Problems of Causal Inference from Non-experimental Data in Macroeconometrics
• 15h30 Jaakko KUORIKOSKI and Caterina MARCHIONNI, University of Helsinki - Neuroeconomics as Triangulation
• Coffee break
• 16h30 Roland ETTEMA, Open University in the Netherlands - Advancing Organisational Diagnosis With Mechanism-Based Explanations
• 17h Dieneke HUBBELING, South West London and St George’s NHS Mental Health Trust, London - Finding Out About Causal Influences in Different Ways
• 17h30 Inge DE BAL, Bert LEURIDAN and Erik WEBER, Ghent University - Interventionism, Policy and Varieties of Evidence for Causal Claims
• 20h Conference dinner

Wednesday, July 3rd 2013

• 9h30 Gianluca MANZO, Paris-Sorbonne University - Agent-based Modeling and Types of Causality
• 10h30 Lorenzo CASINI, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy - Interventions, Simulation, and Causal Inference
• Coffee break
• 11h30 Mark FEDYK, Mount Allison University - There is More Causal Knowledge in the Ethical Domain than can be Experimentally Investigated
• 12h Maria JIMENEZ BUEDO, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia - Internal and External Validity: Implicit Assumptions about Causal Inference from Experiments
• Lunch break
• 14h Uljana FEEST, Technische Universität Berlin - Experiments and the Method of Converging Operations
• 15h Julian REISS, Durham University - A Theory of Evidence for Causal Claims
• 15h30 Sudeepa ABEYSINGHE and Justin PARKHURST, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - The Use of Evidence in Health Policy: the Practical Implications of Getting Research into Practice
• Coffee break
• 16h30 Alexander PRESCOTT-COUCH, Harvard University - Two Problems for Interventionism
• 17h Victor GIJSBERS, Leiden University and Leon DE BRUIN, Radboud University Nijmegen and Bochum University - An Agency-Interventionist Account of Causation
• 17h30 Esteban CÉSPEDES, J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main - Is Overdetermination a Possible Experiment?

Organization: Isabelle DROUET ([email protected]), Max KISTLER ([email protected]).

Further information

[email protected]