IlyaShpitser comments on Causal Diagrams and Causal Models - Less Wrong

61 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 October 2012 09:49PM

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Comment author: IlyaShpitser 31 October 2012 06:24:10PM *  2 points [-]

Even if you assume that we can do induction (and assume faithfulness!), conditional independence tests simply do not select among causal models. They select among statistical models, because conditional independences are properties of joint distributions (statistical, rather than causal objects). Linking those joint distributions with something causal relies on causal assumptions.

I think the biggest lesson to learn from Pearl's book is to keep statistical and causal notions separate.

Comment author: eurg 05 November 2012 02:21:20PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for clarifying!