Causation in Biology

May 29, 2021

Causation is at the heart of any scientific inquiry. I am interested in characterising this phenomenon both generally and more particularly in biological contexts. In particular, I have been interested in the concept of heritability, which is used in several subfields of biology. I have also developed several information theoretic measures of causation within the interventionist account and, more recently, proposed some ways to link information theory and the interventionist account to heritability.

Pierrick Bourrat

Senior Lecturer & DECRA Fellow

My research interests include the various concepts deployed in evolutionary theory, causation, and the interplay between biological and cultural evolution.

Publications

On the causal interpretation of heritability from a structural causal modeling perspective

(2022). Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 94, 87–98

Qiaoying Lu, Pierrick Bourrat

Heritability, causal influence and locality

(2021). Heritability, causal influence and locality. Synthese, 198, 6689–6715.

Pierrick Bourrat

Measuring Causal Invariance Formally

(2021). Measuring Causal Invariance Formally. Entropy, 23(6), 690.

Pierrick Bourrat

Causation and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Heritability

(2020). Causation and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Heritability. Philosophy of Science, 87(5), 1073–1083.

Pierrick Bourrat

On Calcott’s permissive and instructive cause distinction

(2019). On Calcott’s permissive and instructive cause distinction. Biology & Philosophy, 34(1), 1.

Pierrick Bourrat

Variation of information as ameasure of one-to-one causal specificity

(2019). Variation of information as a measure of one-to-one causal specificity. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 9(1), 11.

Pierrick Bourrat

Evolution is about Populations, but its Causes are about Individuals

(2019). Evolution is about Populations, but its Causes are about Individuals. Biological Theory, 14(4), 254–266.

Pierrick Bourrat

Have Causal Claims About the Gut Microbiome Been Over-Hyped?

(2018). Have Causal Claims About the Gut Microbiome Been Over-Hyped? BioEssays, 40(12), 1800178.

Pierrick Bourrat

Natural selection and drift as individual-level causes of evolution

(2018). Natural selection and drift as individual-level causes of evolution. Acta Biotheoretica, 66(3), 159–176.

Pierrick Bourrat

Why the missing heritability might not be in the DNA

(2017). Why the missing heritability might not be in the DNA. BioEssays, 39(7).

Pierrick Bourrat, Qiaoying Lu, Eva Jablonka

Dissolving the missing heritability problem

(2017). Dissolving the missing heritability problem. Philosophy of Science, 84(5), 1055–1067.

Pierrick Bourrat, Qiaoying Lu

Interpreting Heritability Causally

(2017). Interpreting Heritability Causally. Philosophy of Science, 84(1), 14–34.

Kate E. Lynch, Pierrick Bourrat