Miguel Hernán Profile picture
Using health data to learn what works. Making #causalinference less casual. Director @CAUSALab | Professor @HarvardEpi | Methods Editor @AnnalsofIM
May 16, 2018 6 tweets 4 min read
Judea Pearl has a new book (with Dana Mackenzie).
amazon.com/Book-Why-Scien…

To me, Judea is an intellectual hero. My life changed after hearing him at Harvard over 20 years ago. Like many of us in #causalinference, I owe so much to him.

And yet I disagree with him on a key issue. Pearl believes that any causal effect we can name must also exist.

To him, the meaning of “the causal effect of A on death” is self-evident. He says we can quantify, say, the causal effect of race or the causal effect of obesity.

I don't think we can.