Causal Analysis in Theory and Practice

July 14, 2014

On Simpson’s Paradox. Again?

Filed under: Discussion,General,Simpson's Paradox — eb @ 9:10 pm

Simpson’s paradox must have an unbounded longevity, partly because traditional statisticians, so it seems, are still refusing to accept the fact that the paradox is causal, not statistical (link to R-414).

This was demonstrated recently in an April discussion on Gelman’s blog where the paradox was portrayed again as one of those typical cases where conditional associations are different from marginal associations. Strangely, only one or two discussants dared call: “Wait a minute! This is not what the paradox is about!” — to little avail.

To watch the discussion more closely, click http://andrewgelman.com/2014/04/08/understanding-simpsons-paradox-using-graph/ .

4 Comments »

  1. I would have liked it better had you disputed Gelman’s claim about Red State Blue state more directly. To me this seems to be a clear-cut case of a “puzzle” caused by incorrect causal inference. In what sense does Gelman think it is non-causal?

    That is important because it was the only concrete instance proposed for the alleged class of non-causal Simpson’s Paradoxes.

    Comment by Phil Koop — August 1, 2014 @ 1:29 pm

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