I respectfully disagree. When people say “X causes Y,” they usually mean “X *always* causes Y.” But, in biology, it is common to find causal relationships that disappear when conditions change. You need mechanism to be able to say “always.”https://twitter.com/s_r_constantin/status/1109096998278320128?s=21 …
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In biology, you can make a perturbation, say under 25 C temperature, find causality, publish a paper and celebrate victory. Six months later, someone finds that your experiment does not replicate under 22 C temperature. This is why we need to know mechanisms.
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Well, tbh, I'd call that example not experimenting in good faith. Which happens! But I don't like conflating 'methods for finding answers to our questions' with 'methods for making cheating inconvenient'.
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