Eli5: In science, can you establish causation without knowing the causal mechanism?

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Pretty much the title

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Sure.

Perhaps the first and most flameouts is Koch’s Postulates, which were proposed to determine if a bacteria caused a disease. Nothing about causal mechanism. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3775492/#:~:text=As%20originally%20stated%2C%20the%20four,%3B%20and%20finally%20(4)%20The

Even today, if Koch’s postulates are met, causation would be widely accepted as shown.

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