 One issue that is currently debated in the philosophy of medicine is the desirability (or lack thereof) of citing information about the mechanisms responsible for a medical outcome to explain this outcome. While mechanisms are usually characterized in causal terms (e.g., Glennan 2002; Woodward 2002; Steel 2008), it is not the case that every cause acts through or is a part of some mechanism, which is understood as a more or less complex arrangement of causal factors that are productive of change (e.g., Machamer et al. 2000). Absences, such as lack of sunlight, can cause medical outcomes but are not related to them through continuous mechanisms from cause to effect (Reiss 2012). Neuroscientific explanations are often acceptable despite the lack of knowledge or false assumptions about mechanisms (Weber 2008). However, we may ask whether mechanistic explanations are  generally preferable to non-mechanistic causal explanations.