{"id":151,"date":"2024-10-15T11:53:40","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T10:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/?page_id=151"},"modified":"2025-01-22T15:46:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T15:46:43","slug":"papers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/papers\/","title":{"rendered":"Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-152 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/files\/2024\/10\/ebmplus.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"252\" height=\"103\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Some recent papers related to EBM+ include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Marissa LeBlanc, Jon Williamson, Francesco De Pretis, Juergen Landes and Elena Rocca: <strong><a title=\"This paper discusses the issue of overriding the right of individual consent to participation in cluster randomised trials (CRTs). We focus on CRTs testing the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions. As one example, we use the case of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Norway, a cluster randomized trial was suggested and promoted as necessary for providing the best evidence to inform pandemic management policy. However, the proposal was rejected by the Norwegian Research Ethics Committee since it would violate the requirement for individual informed consent. This sparked debate about whether ethics stand in the way of evidence-based health policy, since the Norwegian Research Ethics law\u2019s strict requirements for individual consent make it practically impossible to carry out CRTs of public health interventions. We argue that, in the case of the school closure trial, the suggested CRT would not have eliminated an epistemic gap and thus would not have justified the violation of consent rights. First, we focus on the methodological challenges to estimating quantifiable effects of school closures in the specific case of an airborne infectious disease. Second, in line with Evidential Pluralism, we highlight the value of alternative lines of evidence for informing school closure policy in a pandemic. In general, we propose that a trial requiring the waiver of participants\u2019 consent rights must be highly likely to eliminate an epistemic gap. We elaborate on the practical aspects of this criterion and discuss the potential advantages of adding it to the Ottawa Statement on the Ethical Design and Conduct of Cluster Randomized Trials.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/09581596.2024.2338074\">Individual consent in cluster randomised trials for non-pharmaceutical interventions: Going beyond the Ottawa Statement<\/a><\/strong>, <em>Critical Public Health<\/em> 34(1): 2338074, 2024.<\/li>\n<li>Valeriano Iranzo and Sa\u00fal P\u00e9rez-Gonz\u00e1lez: <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10516-024-09723-4\">Evidence and Computer Simulations in Public Health<\/a>, <em>Global Philosophy <\/em>34:25, 2024.<\/li>\n<li>Andrew Park, Daniel Steel and Elicia Maine, <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/jmp\/article\/48\/4\/348\/7151042?login=true\"><strong>Evidence-based Medicine and Mechanistic Evidence: The Case of the Failed Rollout of Efavirenz in Zimbabwe<\/strong><\/a>, <em>The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine <\/em>48(4): 348-358, 2023.<\/li>\n<li>Michael Wilde: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.degruyter.com\/document\/doi\/10.1515\/ijb-2022-0126\/html\"><strong>The EBM+ movement<\/strong><\/a>, <em>The International Journal of Biostatistics<\/em>, 19(2): 283-293. 2023.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"highwire-citation-authors\"><span class=\"highwire-citation-author first\" data-delta=\"0\"><span class=\"nlm-surname\">Trisha Greenhalgh<\/span><\/span>, David <span class=\"highwire-citation-author\" data-delta=\"1\"><span class=\"nlm-surname\">Fisman<\/span><\/span>, Danielle J <span class=\"highwire-citation-author\" data-delta=\"2\"><span class=\"nlm-surname\">Cane<\/span><\/span><\/span><span class=\"citation-et\">, et al.: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ebm.bmj.com\/content\/27\/5\/253\"><strong>Adapt or die: how the pandemic made the shift from EBM to EBM+ more urgent<\/strong><\/a>, <em><span class=\"highwire-cite-metadata-journal highwire-cite-metadata\">BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine <\/span><\/em><span class=\"highwire-cite-metadata-volume highwire-cite-metadata\">27:<\/span><span class=\"highwire-cite-metadata-pages highwire-cite-metadata\">253-260, <span class=\"highwire-cite-metadata-year highwire-cite-metadata\">2022<\/span>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Mariusz Maziarz and Adrian Stencel, <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s40656-022-00532-9\"><strong>The failure of drug repurposing for COVID\u201119 as an effect of excessive hypothesis testing and weak mechanistic evidence<\/strong><\/a>, <em>History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences <\/em>44:47, 2022.<\/li>\n<li>Daniel Auker-Howlett and Jon Williamson: <strong><a title=\"As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, barriers to vaccination uptake are heterogeneous and vary according to the local context. We argue that a more systematic consideration of local social and behavioural mechanisms could improve the development, assessment and refinement of vaccination uptake interventions. The EBM+ approach to evidence appraisal, which is a development of a recent line of work on the epistemology of causality, provides a means to evaluate mechanistic studies and their role in assessing the effectiveness of an intervention. We argue that an EBM+ methodology offers several potential benefits for research on vaccination uptake interventions. It also motivates the use of detailed mechanistic models, rather than the high-level logic models used by process evaluations, for example.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.argumenta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/4-Argumenta-7-1-Daniel-Auker-Howlett-and-Jon-Williamson-Vaccination-Uptake-Interventions.pdf\">Vaccination uptake interventions: an EBM+ approach<\/a><\/strong>, <em>Argumenta<\/em> 7(1): 79-96, 2021.<\/li>\n<li>Jeffrey K Aronson, Daniel Auker-Howlett, Virginia Ghiara, Michael P Kelly and Jon Williamson: <strong><a title=\"Evidence-based medicine (EBM), the dominant approach to assessing the effectiveness of clinical and public health interventions, focuses on the results of association studies. EBM+ is a development of EBM that systematically considers mechanistic studies alongside association studies. In this paper we provide several examples of the importance of mechanistic evidence to coronavirus research. (i) Assessment of combination therapy for MERS highlights the need for systematic assessment of mechanistic evidence. (ii) That hypertension is a risk factor for severe disease in the case of SARS-CoV-2 suggests that altering hypertension treatment might alleviate disease, but the mechanisms are complex, and it is essential to consider and evaluate multiple mechanistic hypotheses. (iii) To be confident that public health interventions will be effective requires a detailed assessment of social and psychological components of the mechanisms of their action, in addition to mechanisms of disease. (iv) In particular, if vaccination programmes are to be effective, they must be carefully tailored to the social context; again, mechanistic evidence is crucial. We conclude that coronavirus research is best situated within the EBM+ evaluation framework.\" href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/jep.13438\">The use of mechanistic reasoning in assessing coronavirus interventions<\/a><\/strong>, <em>Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice<\/em> 27(3): 684-693, 2021.<\/li>\n<li>Jon Williamson: <strong><a title=\"The EBM+ programme is an attempt to improve the way in which present-day evidence-based medicine (EBM) assesses causal claims: according to EBM+, mechanistic studies should be scrutinised alongside association studies. This paper addresses two worries about EBM+: (i) that it is not feasible in practice, and (ii) that it is too malleable, i.e., its results depend on subjective choices that need to be made in order to implement the procedure. Several responses to these two worries are considered and evaluated. The paper also discusses the question of whether we should have confidence in medical interventions, in the light of Stegenga\u2019s arguments for medical nihilism.\" href=\"https:\/\/ojs.ehu.eus\/index.php\/THEORIA\/article\/view\/21244\">The feasibility and malleability of EBM+<\/a><\/strong>, <em>Theoria<\/em> 36(2):191-209, 2021.<\/li>\n<li>Jon Williamson:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/02698595.2019.1630927\"><strong>Establishing causal claims in medicine<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0<em>International Studies in the Philosophy of Science<\/em>, 32(1): 33-61. 2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-153 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/files\/2024\/10\/ebpplus.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"129\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Some recent papers related to EBP+ include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sa\u00fal P\u00e9rez-Gonz\u00e1lez, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0039368123001656?via%3Dihub\"><strong>Evidence of mechanisms in evidence-based policy<\/strong><\/a>,<em> Studies in History and Philosophy of Science<\/em> 103:95-104, 2024.<\/li>\n<li>Yafeng Shan and Jon Williamson: <strong><a title=\"This volume contends that Evidential Pluralism - an account of the epistemology of causation, which maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one needs to establish the existence of a correlation and the existence of a mechanism - can be fruitfully applied to the social sciences. Through case studies in sociology, economics, political science and law, it advances new philosophical foundations for causal enquiry in the social sciences. The book provides an account of how to establish and evaluate causal claims and it offers a new way of thinking about evidence-based policy, basic social science research and mixed methods research. As such, it will appeal to scholars with interests in social science research and methodology, the philosophy of science and evidence-based policy.\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/books\/oa-mono\/10.4324\/9781003143000\/evidential-pluralism-social-sciences-yafeng-shan-jon-williamson\">Evidential Pluralism in the Social Sciences<\/a><\/strong>, Routledge 2023.<\/li>\n<li>Duna Sabri: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/01425692.2023.2179017\"><strong>Rethinking causality and inequality in students\u2019 degree outcomes<\/strong><\/a>, <em>Br<\/em><span dir=\"ltr\"><em>itish Journal of Sociology of Education<\/em> 44(3):520-538, 2023.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Yafeng Shan and Jon Williamson: <strong><a title=\"Evidential Pluralism maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one normally needs to establish the existence of an appropriate conditional correlation and the existence of an appropriate mechanism complex, so when assessing a causal claim one ought to consider both association studies and mechanistic studies. Hitherto, Evidential Pluralism has been applied to medicine, leading to the EBM+ programme, which recommends that evidence-based medicine should systematically evaluate mechanistic studies alongside clinical studies. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism can also be fruitfully applied to the social sciences. In particular, Evidential Pluralism provides (i) a new approach to evidence-based policy; (ii) a new account of the evidential relationships in more theoretical research; and (iii) new philosophical motivation for mixed methods research. The application of Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences is also defended against two objections.\" href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s13194-021-00415-z\">Applying Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences<\/a><\/strong>, <em>European Journal for the Philosophy of Science<\/em> 11(4):96, 2021.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-154 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/files\/2024\/10\/eblplus.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"129\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Some recent papers related to EBL+ include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Alexandra Trofimov and Jon Williamson: <strong><a title=\"Evidence-based law seeks to make best use of evidence to assess the effectiveness of laws and regulations. The question arises as to how exactly to make best use of evidence. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism provides an answer to this question, and can thus provide philosophical foundations for evidence-based law. Evidential Pluralism is a theory of causal enquiry which maintains that one needs to scrutinise mechanistic studies alongside the experimental and observational studies that are the focus of present-day evidence-based medicine and evidence-based policy. The paper develops a new approach to evidence-based law, called EBL+, based on the principles of Evidential Pluralism. Three examples show how the proposed methods work: banning hand-held mobile phone use while driving, sugar tax, and face-mask mandates for controlling Covid-19.\">Applying Evidential Pluralism to evidence-based law: EBL+<\/a><\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/journals\/rjpn20\"><em>Jurisprudence<\/em><\/a>. Open access. Doi <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/20403313.2025.2449758\">10.1080\/20403313.2025.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Alexandra Trofimov: <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/00483931241291103\">Applying Evidential Pluralism to Justify Legal Responses to Online Fake News<\/a>, <em>Philosophy of the Social Sciences<\/em>, 2024.<\/li>\n<li>Alexandra Trofimov: <strong>Evidential Pluralism as a methodology for Evidence-Based Law<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/thereasoner\/files\/2024\/07\/TheReasoner-184.pdf\"><em>The Reasoner<\/em> 18(4)<\/a>: 30-31, 2024.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some recent papers related to EBM+ include: Marissa LeBlanc, Jon Williamson, Francesco De Pretis, Juergen Landes and Elena Rocca: Individual&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/papers\/\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Papers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40779,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40779"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/151\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/evidential-pluralism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}