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Record W4405991561 · doi:10.1162/qss_c_00347

On the limits of causal theory for studying inequalities in science

2025· article· en· W4405991561 on OpenAlexafffund
Diego Kozlowski

Bibliographic record

VenueQuantitative Science Studies · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldPhysics and Astronomy
TopicQuantum Mechanics and Applications
Canadian institutionsUniversité de Montréal
FundersSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
KeywordsPopularityGateway (web page)Explanatory powerInequalityCausal modelComputer scienceEpistemologyPsychologySocial psychologyMathematicsWorld Wide WebPhilosophyStatistics

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract While causal models are gaining popularity in science studies due to their explanatory power over certain phenomena, they are often misused, creating a false sensation of confidence. This letter aims to discuss the limitations of such models from internal and external critique, showing some of the risks they entail.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.055
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.153
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesMetaresearch, Science and technology studies
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: Theoretical or conceptual
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.997
Threshold uncertainty score0.293

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0550.153
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0020.001
Bibliometrics0.0030.003
Science and technology studies0.0030.028
Scholarly communication0.0070.015
Open science0.0030.007
Research integrity0.0040.010
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0090.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.139
GPT teacher head0.423
Teacher spread0.284 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

Study designTheoretical or conceptual
DomainMethods
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations1
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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