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E7: The One Causal Principle You Can't Do Without

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 1d

As an expert on causation, I approve this reasoning!

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 9d

I'm excited to post this new episode on the causal Markov condition!

youtu.be/eQNfpaAURdU?...

Broadcast News (1987) - News theme scene

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 13d

Very few directors could pull off having these 45 second in the middle of a movie in a way that's both unrelated to any other plot point, but also integrated into its whole world in a way that adds to it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW-B...

YouTube video by BrokerMackler

Lunchtime Talk - Aydin Mohseni 9/19/25

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 19d

Aydin Mohsehi @center4philsci.bsky.social. "A Bayesian Reduction of Causation in Causal Models".

The part about reduction was less original than I anticipated, but I really liked the link to exchangeability and how it links causation to Bayesian probabilities.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_PT...

YouTube video by Center for Philosophy of Science

E6: Making Mechanisms Matter

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 20d

What was the word count of the longest referee report you've ever written?

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 25d

Who said you didn't know how to use social media?!?

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · 27d

Wait. Is The Martian just Saving Private Ryan in space? How many people does it take to save Matt Damon?

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Sep 2

I have no idea what you’re talking about…

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Sep 1

I’m v interested in what the Network people are doing, but am curious about why the contrast here is “Newtonian”. To the extent I know what it means, it seems to me that it was killed by Bertrand Russell (who was wrong about causation more generally)

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Aug 30

I just posted a video on the Front-Door criterion, which enables you to identify an effect using mechanisms. This video is more technical than the others, but really illustrates how causal graphs create a bridge between causes and probabilities.

youtu.be/xRFOj71FPU0

Discovering causal structures in corrupted data: frugality in anchored Gaussian DAG models

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Aug 29

Very exciting. "Frugality" is a term I coined because "sparsest Markov permutation" was a mouthful, and it I wanted to explicitly contrast it with "Faithfulness". But up to now it's been too computationally intensive to implement at scale.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This study focuses on the recovery of anchored Gaussian directed acyclic graphical (DAG) models to address the challenge of discovering causal or dire…

www.sciencedirect.com

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Aug 17

Has anyone else watched Zoolander since watching Severance and picked up on the stylistic similarities?

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Aug 15

Thinking about Mechanisms is the top cited article in @philscijournal.bsky.social (est. 1935). Their website says 1847 citations, Scholar says 4032. Says a lot about philosophy citations compared to other fields.

What was the most cited in @thebjps.bsky.social?

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Most cited | Philosophy of Science | Cambridge Core

Most cited Philosophy of Science - James Owen Weatherall, David Danks, Kenny Easwaran, Kevin Elliott, Doreen Fraser, Marta Halina, Marie Kaiser, Kareem Khalifa, Alan C. Love, Angela Potochnik, Hannah ...

www.cambridge.org

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Aug 8

After a bit of a summer pause, I'm back to making episodes. In this episode, I explain the notion of confounding, and clarify why confounders should not be thought of as alternate explanations of an observed effect.

youtu.be/kAgS7cltBhM

E5: What Confounding Really Is

E0: What is a Causal Model?

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Jul 8

In DAGs, confounders are variables that bias an effect measurement (i.e. they hinder identification). I regularly see a vaguer understanding of confounding as alternate explanations of an effect (e.g. I thought X caused Y, but in fact Z does). Does anyone have good examples of the latter usage?

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Jul 8

This clip is the part of the last episode that has so far generated the most discussion.

youtube.com/clip/Ugkxeuv...

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Jul 5

An Episode in honor of Independence Day...

youtu.be/7h6tnV1mEEE?...

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Jul 4

I decided to make an introductory episode, to provide some orientation for the later episodes. In it, I introduce DAGs and explain how causation is a strategy for managing complexity.

I spent a lot of time improving the sound quality, so I hope that paid off.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h6t...

Homeostasis and Causal Control - PhilSci-Archive

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Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Jun 27

Look's great - I'm very much looking forward to reading it! I was having some thoughts in this direction while I was working on this: philsci-archive.pitt.edu/25288/

philsci-archive.pitt.edu

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Jun 24

Jupyter Notebooks: Stop trying to make fetch happen

Naftali Weinberger @dagophile.bsky.social · Jun 23

How can a drug raise the chance of recovery in a population, while lowering the chance in both men and women?

The answer is Simpson's paradox, which still confuses people. Here I clarify the paradox, w/ examples involving COVID-19, and testing police discrimination.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMnA...

E4: Simpson's Paradox