Title
Detection of unfaithfulness and robust causal inference
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Minds and Machines
Publication Date
6-1-2008
Volume
18
Issue
2
First Page
239
Last Page
271
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Keywords
Bayesian network, Causal inference, Epistemology of causation, Faithfulness condition, Machine learning, Uniform consistency
Abstract
Much of the recent work on the epistemology of causation has centered on two assumptions, known as the Causal Markov Condition and the Causal Faithfulness Condition. Philosophical discussions of the latter condition have exhibited situations in which it is likely to fail. This paper studies the Causal Faithfulness Condition as a conjunction of weaker conditions. We show that some of the weaker conjuncts can be empirically tested, and hence do not have to be assumed a priori. Our results lead to two methodologically significant observations: (1) some common types of counterexamples to the Faithfulness condition constitute objections only to the empirically testable part of the condition; and (2) some common defenses of the Faithfulness condition do not provide justification or evidence for the testable parts of the condition. It is thus worthwhile to study the possibility of reliable causal inference under weaker Faithfulness conditions. As it turns out, the modification needed to make standard procedures work under a weaker version of the Faithfulness condition also has the practical effect of making them more robust when the standard Faithfulness condition actually holds. This, we argue, is related to the possibility of controlling error probabilities with finite sample size (“uniform consistency”) in causal inference.
DOI
10.1007/s11023-008-9096-4
Print ISSN
09246495
E-ISSN
15728641
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Zhang, J., & Spirtes, P. (2008). Detection of unfaithfulness and robust causal inference. Minds and Machines, 18(2), 239-271. doi: 10.1007/s11023-008-9096-4
