The Book of Why

Outline

The Book of Why (2018) explains the new science of cause and effect. Judea Pearl and Dana MacKenzie show why data alone cannot tell us why things happen, and introduce the ladder of causation, which moves from seeing patterns to testing interventions and imagining what would have happened otherwise. The book reveals how causal thinking is changing medicine, economics, and artificial intelligence.

• Data alone cannot tell us why things happen; explaining causes takes more than collecting numbers.
• The book presents a new science of cause and effect that goes beyond spotting correlations.
• The ladder of causation climbs from seeing patterns, to testing interventions, to imagining what would have happened otherwise.
• Causal thinking is already changing medicine, economics, and artificial intelligence.

Judea Pearl and Dana MacKenzie combine groundbreaking research with clear science writing. Pearl is an Israeli-American computer scientist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who received the Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of computing, for his work on probability and causal reasoning. MacKenzie is an American mathematician and award-winning science writer.