12

Can I Have a Causal Graph, Please?

Welcome to Chapter 12.

We will start our journey to the land of causal discovery here.

Most people who hear about causal discovery for the first time are truly fascinated by this topic. Other people are skeptical, yet almost no one is indifferent.

Perhaps this tendency toward stronger reactions reveals something fundamental about our own human nature. In the first chapter, we briefly discussed Alison Gopnik’s research showing that even infants and small babies run experiments in order to efficiently construct world models.

In this chapter, we’ll discuss three sources of causal knowledge and we’ll think together about the relative advantages and disadvantages of using them.

By the end of this chapter, you’ll ...

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