Causal queries about singular cases are ubiquitous, yet the question of how we assess whether a particular outcome was actually caused by a specific potential cause turns out to be difficult to answer. Relying on the causal power framework (Cheng, ), Cheng and Novick () proposed a model of causal attribution intended to help answer this question. We challenge this model, both conceptually and e...

BACKGROUND Understanding perceptions of the causes of ill-health common in indigenous communities may help policy makers to design effective integrated primary health care strategies to serve these communities. This study explored the indigenous beliefs of ill-health causation among those living in the Tehuledere Woreda /district/ in North East Ethiopia from a socio-cultural perspective. METH...

Causality refers to the relationship between events where one set of events (the effects) is a direct consequence of another set of events (the causes). Causal inference is the process by which one can use data to make claims about causal relationships. Since inferring causal relationships is one of the central tasks of science, it is a topic that has been heavily debated in philosophy, statist...

As a basis for psychological theory construction, Stiles (2009) proposes connecting theory and practice in single, qualitative case studies as an alternative to group-experimental approaches. In this paper, we apply Stiles’ model to determine the causation of psychological injuries within individual cases in forensic settings—in other words, to develop a theory of causation within individual fo...

Considering what the world would be like if backwards causation were possible is usually mind-bending. Here I discuss something that is easier to study: a toy model that incorporates a very restricted sort of backwards causation. It defines particle world lines by means of a kind of differential delay equation with negative delay. The model presumably prohibits signalling to the past and superl...

Causal relations permeate human knowledge across a wide range of domains, from the physical to the abstract. The existence of causal relations in many different domains raises an interesting challenge for accounts of causation. On the one hand, the word cause, and related words, can be used to describe a very wide range of situations, consistent with the possibility that people’s representation...

OBJECTIVES We tested whether social integration protects against memory loss and other cognitive disorders in late life in a nationally representative US sample of elderly adults, whether effects were stronger among disadvantaged individuals, and whether earlier cognitive losses explained the association (reverse causation). METHODS Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 16,638)...

Recent Australian decisions have opened the door to possibility of liability premised on a ‘market-based’ theory causation. This article is concerned explore this emerging category claims, particularly when founded upon an allegation misleading or deceptive conduct. Specifically, examine nature market-based causation and consider role that ‘reliance’ has in case based article’s core contention ...

[Shareholder actions arising from misstatements and nondisclosure have been part of the legal landscape in the United States for some time. The Wall Street stock market crash of the 1920s saw the early development in the United States of strong laws for the protection of investors in the stock market, and the mechanism of the class action meant that large numbers of investors were able to seek ...

Structural studies of the glomerulus, largely undertaken in animal models, have informed our understanding of the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) for decades. A fundamental tenet of that understanding is that a loss of podocytes underlies progression in many or most cases of progressive CKD. Recent attempts have been made to reconcile earlier findings from glomerular physiology (the...