118. Lauren Ross: Causation, mechanism, and explanation in neuroscience

Sep 22, 2025

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Lauren Ross is a professor of logic and philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. We talk about her work on causation, mechanism, and explanation in neuroscience, Lauren's background in medicine, how to write clearly, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Why Lauren studied medicine

0:04:23: Differences between medicine and philosophy

0:21:19: Why Lauren switched to philosophy of science

0:25:30: How to learn to write clearly

0:30:21: Are doctors practitioners of causality?

0:34:25: What's so difficult about causality?

0:38:46: Causal structures: mechanism, pathway, cascade, circuit.

1:02:11: The practical use of thinking about causal structures and varieties

1:11:35: What's the difference between a circuit and a pathway? And what are you trying to do?

1:20:31: Secondary features of causation/causal varieties: strength, stability, speed, specificity

1:29:29: A book or paper more people should read

1:30:45: Something Lauren wishes she'd learnt sooner

1:33:29: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Lauren's links

Website: https://geni.us/ross-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/ross-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/ross-bsky

Ben's links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References

Alon (2006). An introduction to systems biology: design principles of biological circuits. [There's a lecture series by Alon that seems to be based on the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6VZeWuME_A&list=PLLbr-B8cNbo6v4kc68JowzUeAYdh6gdQH]

Barack, Miller, Moore, Packer, Pessoa, Ross, & Rust (2022). A call for more clarity around causality in neuroscience. Trends in neurosciences.

Forsyth (2013). The elements of eloquence: How to turn the perfect English phrase.

Hempel (1965). Aspects of scientific explanation.

Ross (2021). Causal concepts in biology: How pathways differ from mechanisms and why it matters. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

Ross & Bassett (2024). Causation in neuroscience: keeping mechanism meaningful. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.