I have just read an “interesting” New Scientist article about the treatment of cause and effect in scientific research.

It put a lot of emphasis on a “new mathematical language of doing” with a “do” operator.

Since I have never heard of this (as far as I recall) I thought I’d get others’ opinion.

Is this a Pearl of wisdom, or a load of bullshit, or something in between?

And related to the same article; if “evidence” is defined as:

“the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.”

then surely correlation can be evidence of causation.

The Rev Dodgson said:

And related to the same article; if “evidence” is defined as:

“the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.”

then surely correlation can be evidence of causation.

So consensus is not to do.

Alright then.

ah, the famous soliloquy

without reading the page, or thinking about it too much, sometimes it may be a stretch or not entirely correct to say whatever causes whatever else, to state it as direct cause, or direct mechanism, or the only mechanism

it’s more accurate to state something happened, or didn’t happen, whatever

it’s quite possible some effect’s are caused by more than one mechanism, all of which may not be apparent. Take the mode of actions of pesticides for example, sometimes a primary mode of action is stated along with other (speculated) mechanisms that can’t be said to be known, the full range of causes of an action are not known. That other mechanisms or modes of action have not been eliminated with a high level of certainty, so can’t be stated as to not exist

transition said:

without reading the page, or thinking about it too much, sometimes it may be a stretch or not entirely correct to say whatever causes whatever else, to state it as direct cause, or direct mechanism, or the only mechanism

it’s more accurate to state something happened, or didn’t happen, whatever

it’s quite possible some effect/s are caused by more than one mechanism, all of which may not be apparent. Take the mode of actions of pesticides for example, sometimes a primary mode of action is stated along with other (speculated) mechanisms that can’t be said to be known, the full range of causes of an action are not known. That other mechanisms or modes of action have not been eliminated with a high level of certainty, so can’t be stated as to not exist

effect/s

The Rev Dodgson said:

I have just read an “interesting” New Scientist article about the treatment of cause and effect in scientific research.

It put a lot of emphasis on a “new mathematical language of doing” with a “do” operator.

Since I have never heard of this (as far as I recall) I thought I’d get others’ opinion.

Is this a Pearl of wisdom, or a load of bullshit, or something in between?

Can’t find a copy on the web, perhaps New Scientist is playing hardball with Sci-Hub.

All I get is “The language of science can’t distinguish between cause and effect. Solving this problem could put research on firm foundations, reports Ciarán Gilligan-Lee”.

That makes sense from several directions.
In GR, the equations can run perfectly backwards. Ditto in QM.

Wolfram Physics makes a big thing of cause and effect in its model of the universe.
Ditto Causal Dynamical Triangulation.

I personally think that the directionality of cause and effect needs to be more fundamental, not relegated to thermodynamics (which is limited to collections of discrete particles). Even in thermodynamics, negative entropy exists.

Or is the aim of the New Scientist article medical? As in https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/tips-for-understanding-studies/does-the-language-fit-the-evidence-association-versus-causation/

Probabilistic causation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_causation

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I have just read an “interesting” New Scientist article about the treatment of cause and effect in scientific research.

It put a lot of emphasis on a “new mathematical language of doing” with a “do” operator.

Since I have never heard of this (as far as I recall) I thought I’d get others’ opinion.

Is this a Pearl of wisdom, or a load of bullshit, or something in between?

Can’t find a copy on the web, perhaps New Scientist is playing hardball with Sci-Hub.

All I get is “The language of science can’t distinguish between cause and effect. Solving this problem could put research on firm foundations, reports Ciarán Gilligan-Lee”.

That makes sense from several directions.
In GR, the equations can run perfectly backwards. Ditto in QM.

Wolfram Physics makes a big thing of cause and effect in its model of the universe.
Ditto Causal Dynamical Triangulation.

I personally think that the directionality of cause and effect needs to be more fundamental, not relegated to thermodynamics (which is limited to collections of discrete particles). Even in thermodynamics, negative entropy exists.

Or is the aim of the New Scientist article medical? As in https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/tips-for-understanding-studies/does-the-language-fit-the-evidence-association-versus-causation/

Firefox won’t let me got to SciHub at the moment.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I have just read an “interesting” New Scientist article about the treatment of cause and effect in scientific research.

It put a lot of emphasis on a “new mathematical language of doing” with a “do” operator.

Since I have never heard of this (as far as I recall) I thought I’d get others’ opinion.

Is this a Pearl of wisdom, or a load of bullshit, or something in between?

Can’t find a copy on the web, perhaps New Scientist is playing hardball with Sci-Hub.

All I get is “The language of science can’t distinguish between cause and effect. Solving this problem could put research on firm foundations, reports Ciarán Gilligan-Lee”.

That makes sense from several directions.
In GR, the equations can run perfectly backwards. Ditto in QM.

Wolfram Physics makes a big thing of cause and effect in its model of the universe.
Ditto Causal Dynamical Triangulation.

I personally think that the directionality of cause and effect needs to be more fundamental, not relegated to thermodynamics (which is limited to collections of discrete particles). Even in thermodynamics, negative entropy exists.

Or is the aim of the New Scientist article medical? As in https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/tips-for-understanding-studies/does-the-language-fit-the-evidence-association-versus-causation/

I would be surprised if the NS article was on Sci-hub (but the quote you gave is from the article, and Ciarán Gilligan-Lee is the author).

The article was quite general in principle, but most of the examples given were medicine or psychology related.

But I was really hoping for some general discussion, not directly related to the article.

Has anyone else here heard of this “do” operator in maths for instance?

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I have just read an “interesting” New Scientist article about the treatment of cause and effect in scientific research.

It put a lot of emphasis on a “new mathematical language of doing” with a “do” operator.

Since I have never heard of this (as far as I recall) I thought I’d get others’ opinion.

Is this a Pearl of wisdom, or a load of bullshit, or something in between?

Can’t find a copy on the web, perhaps New Scientist is playing hardball with Sci-Hub.

All I get is “The language of science can’t distinguish between cause and effect. Solving this problem could put research on firm foundations, reports Ciarán Gilligan-Lee”.

That makes sense from several directions.
In GR, the equations can run perfectly backwards. Ditto in QM.

Wolfram Physics makes a big thing of cause and effect in its model of the universe.
Ditto Causal Dynamical Triangulation.

I personally think that the directionality of cause and effect needs to be more fundamental, not relegated to thermodynamics (which is limited to collections of discrete particles). Even in thermodynamics, negative entropy exists.

Or is the aim of the New Scientist article medical? As in https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/tips-for-understanding-studies/does-the-language-fit-the-evidence-association-versus-causation/

Firefox won’t let me got to SciHub at the moment.

do a google search for scihub and go from there. seems to work when your old link takes too long.

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I have just read an “interesting” New Scientist article about the treatment of cause and effect in scientific research.

It put a lot of emphasis on a “new mathematical language of doing” with a “do” operator.

Since I have never heard of this (as far as I recall) I thought I’d get others’ opinion.

Is this a Pearl of wisdom, or a load of bullshit, or something in between?

Can’t find a copy on the web, perhaps New Scientist is playing hardball with Sci-Hub.

All I get is “The language of science can’t distinguish between cause and effect. Solving this problem could put research on firm foundations, reports Ciarán Gilligan-Lee”.

That makes sense from several directions.
In GR, the equations can run perfectly backwards. Ditto in QM.

Wolfram Physics makes a big thing of cause and effect in its model of the universe.
Ditto Causal Dynamical Triangulation.

I personally think that the directionality of cause and effect needs to be more fundamental, not relegated to thermodynamics (which is limited to collections of discrete particles). Even in thermodynamics, negative entropy exists.

Or is the aim of the New Scientist article medical? As in https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/tips-for-understanding-studies/does-the-language-fit-the-evidence-association-versus-causation/

Firefox won’t let me got to SciHub at the moment.

The link above worked for me.

There is a fair bit of overlap with the NS article, but the NS one is more general.

ChrispenEvan said:

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

Can’t find a copy on the web, perhaps New Scientist is playing hardball with Sci-Hub.

All I get is “The language of science can’t distinguish between cause and effect. Solving this problem could put research on firm foundations, reports Ciarán Gilligan-Lee”.

That makes sense from several directions.
In GR, the equations can run perfectly backwards. Ditto in QM.

Wolfram Physics makes a big thing of cause and effect in its model of the universe.
Ditto Causal Dynamical Triangulation.

I personally think that the directionality of cause and effect needs to be more fundamental, not relegated to thermodynamics (which is limited to collections of discrete particles). Even in thermodynamics, negative entropy exists.

Or is the aim of the New Scientist article medical? As in https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/tips-for-understanding-studies/does-the-language-fit-the-evidence-association-versus-causation/

Firefox won’t let me got to SciHub at the moment.

do a google search for scihub and go from there. seems to work when your old link takes too long.

I’ve had it do this before. It will probably be fine tomorrow. The Google search gives me the same link that I’ve got, the .tw one.

The Rev Dodgson said:

buffy said:

mollwollfumble said:

Can’t find a copy on the web, perhaps New Scientist is playing hardball with Sci-Hub.

All I get is “The language of science can’t distinguish between cause and effect. Solving this problem could put research on firm foundations, reports Ciarán Gilligan-Lee”.

That makes sense from several directions.
In GR, the equations can run perfectly backwards. Ditto in QM.

Wolfram Physics makes a big thing of cause and effect in its model of the universe.
Ditto Causal Dynamical Triangulation.

I personally think that the directionality of cause and effect needs to be more fundamental, not relegated to thermodynamics (which is limited to collections of discrete particles). Even in thermodynamics, negative entropy exists.

Or is the aim of the New Scientist article medical? As in https://www.healthnewsreview.org/toolkit/tips-for-understanding-studies/does-the-language-fit-the-evidence-association-versus-causation/

Firefox won’t let me got to SciHub at the moment.

The link above worked for me.

There is a fair bit of overlap with the NS article, but the NS one is more general.

I got a doi from here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0262407920308174?dgcid=rss_sd_all

But I can’t load SciHub at present.