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Nancy Cartwright was born in 1944. Her research interests have been in philosophy and the history of science. She earned her BSc from the University of Pittsburgh in mathematics and her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. She is currently Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Durham and at the University of California, San Diego.
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Nancy Cartwright argues for a novel conception of the role of fundamental scientific laws in modern natural science. If we attend closely to the manner in which theoretical laws figure in the practice of science, we see that despite their great explanatory power these laws do not describe reality. Instead, fundamental laws describe highly idealized objects in models (retrieved from http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198247044.001.0001/acprof-9780198247043).
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Taking science as measurement, Cartwright argues that capacities are necessary for science and that these can be measured, provided suitable conditions are met. There are case studies from both econometrics and quantum mechanics (retrieved from http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198235070.001.0001/acprof-9780198235071).
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It is often supposed that the spectacular successes of our modern mathematical sciences support a lofty vision of a world completely ordered by one single elegant theory. In this book Nancy Cartwright argues to the contrary (retrieved from http://www.cambridge.org/ie/academic/subjects/philosophy/philosophy-science/dappled-world-study-boundaries-science#pGZaPsrOu3zDb0b3.99).
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Despite its importance this thesis generally is either simply assumed or is supported by very general arguments with heavy reliance on examples, and crucial notions involved are characterized only loosely... it is important to get clear about whether invariance under intervention is or is not necessary or sufficient for which kinds of causal claims. (Cartwright, Nancy, 2000, Measuring causes: Invariance, modularity, and the Causal Markov Condition).
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Nancy Cartwright provides a critical survey of philosophical and economic literature on causality, with a special focus on the currently fashionable Bayes-nets and invariance methods - and it exposes a huge gap in that literature. Almost every account treats either exclusively how to hunt causes or how to use them (retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Causes-Using-Them-Approaches/dp/052167798X).
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In Evidence-Based Policy, Nancy Cartwright, an eminent scholar, and Jeremy Hardie, who has had a long and successful career in both business and the economy, explain that the dominant methods which are in use now, broadly speaking, methods that imitate standard practices in medicine like randomized control trials, do not work (retrieved from https://global.oup.com/academic/product/evidence-based-policy-9780199841622?cc=us&lang=en&#).
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This is a much-needed new introduction to a field that has been transformed in recent years by exciting new subjects, ideas, and methods. It is designed both for students with central interests in philosophy and those planning to concentrate on the social sciences, and it presupposes no particular background in either domain (retrieved from https://global.oup.com/academic/product/philosophy-of-social-science-9780199645107?cc=us&lang=en&#).
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She is currently working on the project Knowledge for Use, which investigates how to use scientific research results for better policies. She is a member of the UK voluntary research network Policy Insight, which desires to develop a new methodology for policy construction, planning, and evaluation.
