Causal Analysis in Theory and Practice

Judea Pearl writes:

Thomas’ latest posting triggered my curiosity to re-examine the causal hierarchy. Originally (see Causality chapter 1), I have characterized causal sentences into three categories:

1. probabilistic (i.e., non-causal, or what we can estimate from observational studies)
2. experimental (i.e., do-expressions, or what we can estimate from controlled, randomized experiments)
3. counterfactuals (i.e., subscripted sentences, or everything that can be computed from a fully specified structural model that is, a collection of functions with probabilities on the exogenous variables)

Click here for the full post.

—

As always, we welcome your views on this topic. To continue the discussion, please use the comment link below to add your thoughts. You can also suggest a new topic of discussion using our submission form by clicking here.