A Logical Characterization of Constraint-Based Causal Discovery
نویسندگان
چکیده
We present a novel approach to constraintbased causal discovery, that takes the form of straightforward logical inference, applied to a list of simple, logical statements about causal relations that are derived directly from observed (in)dependencies. It is both sound and complete, in the sense that all invariant features of the corresponding partial ancestral graph (PAG) are identified, even in the presence of latent variables and selection bias. The approach shows that every identifiable causal relation corresponds to one of just two fundamental forms. More importantly, as the basic building blocks of the method do not rely on the detailed (graphical) structure of the corresponding PAG, it opens up a range of new opportunities, including more robust inference, detailed accountability, and application to large models.
منابع مشابه
Proof supplement to: A Logical Characterization of Constraint-Based Causal Discovery
Proof. As the edges in GC represent causal relations, a path of length 0 (no edge) is not considered a causal relation, and existence of a directed path from a variable back to itself would contravene the causal DAG assumption, hence: irreflexive and acyclic (or, more accurate, asymmetric). Transitivity follows immediately, by concatenation, from the sequence 〈X, .., Y, .., Z〉, in which each no...
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