批判因果机器学习的科学哲学基础,揭示其在不同领域中的适用边界。
"Cause" is Mechanistic Narrative within Scientific Domains: An Ordinary Language Philosophical Critique of "Causal Machine Learning"
- 用日常语言哲学分析因果表述,发现其核心是描述系统中关键机制。
- 物理工程领域数学模型可充分表征因果,生物与社科则因复杂性受限。
- 跨领域一致证据才支持确定性因果结论,需警惕夸大研究结果。
因果学习近年来成为统计学与机器学习的重要研究方向,承诺揭示“真实”因果关系。本文通过考察各学科中因果认识论,运用日常语言哲学方法,分析现实世界中因果推理的惯常表达。我们发现,尽管因果语义在不同科学领域存在差异,但均围绕系统中最具显著性的机制展开。关键区分在于统计模型的数学表征与专家对机制的完整理解之间的吻合程度。物理与工程领域中,数学模型足以全面描述因果;生物学研究开放且不可还原的系统,机制跨越尺度并涌现;社会科学则面临精度难题,但通过诠释学可提供个体层面工具性有用的主观经验。我们主张,专家定义模型与机制完整刻画之间的差距越大,越需要依赖多领域一致证据才能作出确定性因果判断。增强对证据确信度的审慎沟通,尤其在面对夸大结论的激励时保持克制,是应对现代科学集体行动困境的唯一持久方案。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Causal Learning has emerged as a major theme of research in statistics and machine learning in recent years, promising computational techniques to reveal ``true'' causality. In this paper, we critique the premise of causal learning by considering the epistemology of causality across disciplines, applying the Ordinary Language method of an anthropological investigation of customary word use in reasoning about cause and effect in the real world. We observe that although cause-and-effect semantics vary between scientific domains, they maintain a consistent central function of describing the mechanisms underlying forces most salient to the systems under research. A critical distinction is the degree to which the mathematical representations of the models used for statistical analysis exhibit a faithful correspondence to expert knowledge in mechanism. We demarcate 1) physics and engineering as domains wherein mathematical models are sufficient to comprehensively describe causality, in contrast to 2) biology, which studies open and irreducible systems with mechanisms crossing scales through emergence, and 3) the social sciences as suffering from compounding difficulties for precision but providing, through Hermeneutics, the potential for subjective phenomenology yielding findings instrumentally useful to individuals. We posit the greater the discrepancy between expert-defined models and complete characterization of mechanism, the more that epistemic virtue requires that definitive causal claims regarding phenomena can only come through an agglomeration of consistent evidence across multiple domains. Exercising greater caution in communicating the degree of certainty evidence provides, especially demanding restraint in the face of incentives to overstate research conclusions, is the only durable solution to modern science's collective action problems.
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