Dear friends in causality research,
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\nThis greeting from UCLA Causality blog contains news and discussion on the following topics:<\/p>\n
1. Reflections on 2016 JSM meeting.
\n2. The question of equivalent representations.
\n3. Simpson’s Paradox (Comments on four recent papers)
\n4. News concerning Causal Inference Primer
\n5. New books, blogs and other frills.<\/p>\n
1. Reflections on JSM-2016 As you can see, I argue that current progress in causal inference\u00a0should be viewed as a major paradigm shift in the history of\u00a0statistics and, accordingly, nuances and disagreements\u00a0are merely linguistic realignments within a unified framework.\u00a0To support this view, I chose for discussion six specific\u00a0achievements (called GEMS) that should make anyone connected\u00a0with causal analysis proud, empowered, and mighty motivated.<\/p>\n The six gems are: I hope you enjoy the slides and appreciate the gems.<\/p>\n 2. The question of equivalent representations 3. Simpson’s Paradox: The riddle that would not die 4. News concerning Causal Inference – A Primer For those of you awaiting the solutions to the study questions in\u00a0the Primer, http:\/\/bayes.cs.ucla.edu\/PRIMER\/<\/a> I am informed that the\u00a0Solution Manual is now available (to instructors) from Wiley.\u00a0To obtain a copy, see page 2 of:\u00a0http:\/\/bayes.cs.ucla.edu\/PRIMER\/CIS-Manual-PUBLIC.pdf<\/a>\u00a0However, rumor has it that a quicker way to get it is through your\u00a0local Wiley representative, at\u00a0https:\/\/professor.wiley.com\/CGI-BIN\/LANSAWEB?PROCFUN+PROF1+PRFFN15<\/a><\/p>\n If you encounter difficulties, please contact us at\u00a0causality.ucla@gmail.com<\/a>\u00a0and we will try to help. Readers tell me that the solutions\u00a0are more enlightening than the text. I am not surprised,\u00a0there is nothing more invigorating than seeing a non-trivial\u00a0problem solved from A to Z.<\/p>\n 5. New books, blogs and other frills 5.2 5.3 Wishing you a super productive Fall season.<\/p>\n J. Pearl<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear friends in causality research, ————————————— This greeting from UCLA Causality blog contains news and discussion on the following topics: 1. Reflections on 2016 JSM meeting. 2. The question of equivalent representations. 3. Simpson’s Paradox (Comments on four recent papers) 4. News concerning Causal Inference Primer 5. New books, blogs and other frills. 1. Reflections […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1755"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1771,"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1755\/revisions\/1771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nFor those who missed the JSM 2016 meeting,\u00a0my tutorial slides can be viewed here:\u00a0http:\/\/bayes.cs.ucla.edu\/jsm-august2016.ppt<\/a><\/p>\n
\n1. Policy Evaluation (Estimating “Treatment Effects”)
\n2. Attribution Analysis (Causes of Effects)
\n3. Mediation Analysis (Estimating Direct and Indirect Effects)
\n4. Generalizability (Establishing External Validity)
\n5. Coping with Selection Bias
\n6. Recovering from Missing Data<\/p>\n
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\nOne challenging question that came up from the audience at JSM\u00a0concerned the unification of the graphical and potential-outcome\u00a0frameworks.\u00a0“How can two logically equivalent representations be\u00a0so different in actual use?”.\u00a0I elaborate on this question in a separate post titled\u00a0“Logically equivalent yet way too different.”\u00a0http:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/12\/<\/a><\/p>\n
\n(Comments on four recent papers)
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\nIf you search Google for “Simpson’s paradox”, as I did yesterday, you\u00a0would get 111,000 results, more than any other statistical paradox\u00a0that I could name. What elevates this innocent reversal of\u00a0associations to “paradoxical” status, and why it has captured the\u00a0fascination of statisticians, mathematicians and philosophers\u00a0for over a century are questions that we discussed at length on\u00a0this (and other) blogs. The reason I am back to this\u00a0topic is the publication of four recent papers that give us a panoramic\u00a0view at how the understanding of causal reasoning has progressed in\u00a0communities that do not usually participate in our discussions. \u00a0http:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/08\/24\/<\/a><\/p>\n
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\nWe are grateful to Jim Grace for his in-depth review on\u00a0Amazon:\u00a0https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/customer-reviews\/R2T3OB4WRGRRC0\/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1119186846<\/a><\/p>\n
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\n5.1
\nWe are informed that a new book by Joseph Halpern, titled “Actual\u00a0Causality”, is available now from MIT Press. (https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Actual-Causality-Press-Joseph-Halpern\/dp\/0262035022<\/a>).\u00a0Readers\u00a0familiar with Halpern’s fundamental contributions to causal reasoning will\u00a0not be surprised to find here a fresh and comprehensive solution to the\u00a0age-old problem of actual causality. Not to be missed.<\/p>\n
\nAdam Kelleher writes about an interesting math-club and causal-minded blog\u00a0that he is orchestrating. See his post, http:\/\/causality.cs.ucla.edu\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/11\/<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGlenn Shafer just published a review paper: “A Mathematical Theory of\u00a0Evidence turn 40” celebrating the 40th anniversary of the publication\u00a0of his 1976 book “A Mathematical Theory of Evidence”\u00a0http:\/\/www.glennshafer.com\/assets\/downloads\/MathTheoryofEvidence-turns-40.pdf<\/a>\u00a0I have enjoyed reading this article for nostalgic reasons, reminding me of\u00a0the stormy days in the 1980’s, when everyone was arguing for another\u00a0calculus of evidential reasoning. My last contribution to that storm,\u00a0just before sailing off to causality land, was this paper:\u00a0http:\/\/ftp.cs.ucla.edu\/pub\/stat_ser\/r136.pdf<\/a>. Section 10 of\u00a0Shafer’s article deals with his 1996 book “The Art of Causal Conjecture”\u00a0My thought: Now, that the causal inference field has matured, perhaps\u00a0it is time to take another look at the way Shafer views causation.<\/p>\n