Book Image

Causal Inference and Discovery in Python

By : Aleksander Molak
4.7 (9)
Book Image

Causal Inference and Discovery in Python

4.7 (9)
By: Aleksander Molak

Overview of this book

Causal methods present unique challenges compared to traditional machine learning and statistics. Learning causality can be challenging, but it offers distinct advantages that elude a purely statistical mindset. Causal Inference and Discovery in Python helps you unlock the potential of causality. You’ll start with basic motivations behind causal thinking and a comprehensive introduction to Pearlian causal concepts, such as structural causal models, interventions, counterfactuals, and more. Each concept is accompanied by a theoretical explanation and a set of practical exercises with Python code. Next, you’ll dive into the world of causal effect estimation, consistently progressing towards modern machine learning methods. Step-by-step, you’ll discover Python causal ecosystem and harness the power of cutting-edge algorithms. You’ll further explore the mechanics of how “causes leave traces” and compare the main families of causal discovery algorithms. The final chapter gives you a broad outlook into the future of causal AI where we examine challenges and opportunities and provide you with a comprehensive list of resources to learn more. By the end of this book, you will be able to build your own models for causal inference and discovery using statistical and machine learning techniques as well as perform basic project assessment.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
1
Part 1: Causality – an Introduction
7
Part 2: Causal Inference
14
Part 3: Causal Discovery

Constraint-based causal discovery

In this section, we’ll introduce the first of the four families of causal discovery methods – constraint-based methods. We will learn the core principles behind constraint-based causal discovery and implement the PC algorithm (Sprites et al., 2000).

By the end of this chapter, you will have a solid understanding of how constraint-based methods work and you’ll know how to implement the PC algorithm in practice using gCastle.

Constraints and independence

Constraint-based methods (also known as independence-based methods) aim at decoding causal structure from the data by leveraging the independence structure between three basic graphical structures: chains, forks, and colliders.

Let’s start with a brief refresher on chains, forks, and colliders. Figure 13.4 presents the three structures:

Figure 13.4 – The three basic graphical structures

Figure 13.4 – The three basic graphical structures

In Chapter 5, we demonstrated that the...