🇬🇧 Do causal inference practices uniquely predicts causal inference quality?

Abstract

Correlation does not imply causation, but teaching applied researchers pretty much just that – and nothing else – about causal inference has had some peculiar consequences. For example, researchers have come up with very creative phrasings to imply causality while maintaining some degree of plausible deniability (such as the language of “unique” prediction), or have put undue faith in pseudo-solutions. In this webinar, I will share some observations that are mainly drawn from psychology but echo concerns raised in other fields (including other social and life sciences). I will discuss a major tension in the debate about causality: if researchers are taught how causal inference works in principle, will they end up drawing even more bad causal inferences? And I will also propose potential ways to make rigorous causal inference more mainstream.