Specificity-talk is pervasive in descriptions of molecular biological information, explanations of genetic causation, and arguments for and against the causal parity thesis in philosophy of biology. In my commentary, I consider the heavy epistemic and normative weight that has been put on the concepts of causal and informational specificity. Despite diverse accounts of informational and causal specificity that appear in the philosophical literature, there is no consensus as to what is the best account. I suggest that this failure of consensus may be the result of different metaphysical accounts of specificity, different methodologies, or different normative epistemological claims being relied upon by practitioners for different purposes.
