Dear Reader,
In this page, I intend to answer questions posed
to me by readers of CAUSALITY on issues
of general interest. I welcome such questions,
especially those touching on the controversial
status of causation, its meaning, its historical
development, how it is taught in classrooms
and how it is treated in textbooks and research
articles. Your questions and comments will be posted
anonymously unless I receive your permission to
include your name.
Judea Pearl
judea@cs.ucla.edu
From: At the request of many readers
Subject: d-Separation Without Tears
Date: March 22, 2000
From David Bessler (Texas A&M University)
Subject: Bertrand Russell on Causality
Date: April 24, 2000
From: David Kenny (University of Connecticut)
Subject: Causality and the mystical error terms (pages 162-3)
Date: May 11, 2000
From: Keith A. Markus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
Subject: Reversing Statistical Time (Chapter 2, p. 58-59)
Date: June 10, 2000
From: Dennis Lindley
Subject: On functional models for predicting the effect of actions
Date: June 28, 2000
From: Dennis Lindley
Subject: On causality and decision trees
Date: July 3, 2000
From: Dennis Lindley
Subject: On causality and decision trees (cont)
Date: September 15, 2000
From: Dennis Lindley
Subject: Reciprocal links in structural equations
Date: November 17, 2000
From: Jonathan Wilson, Surrey England
Subject: Defending the causal interpretation of SEM (or, SEM survival kit)
Date: November 25, 2000
From: L.B.S., University of Arizona, and S.M., Georgia Institute of Technology
Subject: Can do(x) represent practical experiments?
Date: December 1, 2000
From: L.H., University of Alberta and S.M., Georgia Tech
Subject: The causal interpretation of structural coefficients
Date: December 4, 2000
From: Many readers
Subject: Homework, or Gentle Introduction to Causal Models
Date: December 20-22, 2000
From: Bill Shipley, Universite de Sherbrooke, (Quebec) CANADA
Subject: Is the do(x) operator universal?
Date: December 26, 2000
From: Nozer D. Singpurwalla, The George Washington University
Subject: Has causality been defined?
Date: December 28, 2000
From: Many readers
Subject: Identification versus Correctness
Date: January 1, 2001
From: Les Hayduk, University of Alberta
Subject: On the Causal Interpretation of Path Coefficients
Date: April 27, 2001
From: Erich Battistin, University College, London
Subject: Intuition for tight bounds under noncompliance
Date: May 21, 2001
From: A leading statistician (prefers to remain anonymous)
Subject: Is the do-calculus sufficiently fundamental?
Date: July 30, 2001
From: Two Anonymous Statisticians
Subject: Why isn't confounding a statistical concept?
Date: September 28, 2001
From: Sampsa Hautaniemi, NIH
Subject: Zadeh's `CAUSALITY IS UNDEFINABLE'
Date: October 24, 2001
From: Melanie Wall, University of Minnesota
Subject: Indirect Effects
Date: February 16, 2004
From: Susan Scott, Australia
Subject: Causality (2000)
Date: February 16, 2006
From: Dr. Patrik Hoyer, University of Helsinki, Finland
Subject: The Meaning of Counterfactuals
Date: March 10, 2006
From: Arvid Sjolander
Subject: d-separation of counterfactuals
Date: April 24, 2006
From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, Research Fellow, Singularity Institute
for Artificial Intelligence, Santa Barbara, CA
Subject: The validity of G-estimation
Date: May 8, 2006
From: UCLA Students in CS262Z (Seminar in Causality, Spring 2006)
Subject: Identifying conditional plans
Date: May 11, 2006
From: UCLA Epidemiology Class - EPIDEM 200C Methods III: Analysis
Subject: Back-door criterion and epidemiology
Date: February 25, 2007
From: Judea Pearl
Subject: Counterfactuals in linear systems