You're reading from Causal Inference and Discovery in Python

Product type Book

Published in May 2023

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781804612989

Pages 456 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

Concepts

Data Science

Author (1):

Aleksander Molak

Table of Contents (21) Chapters

Preface

1. Part 1: Causality – an Introduction

2. Chapter 1: Causality – Hey, We Have Machine Learning, So Why Even Bother?

3. Chapter 2: Judea Pearl and the Ladder of Causation

4. Chapter 3: Regression, Observations, and Interventions

5. Chapter 4: Graphical Models

6. Chapter 5: Forks, Chains, and Immoralities

7. Part 2: Causal Inference

8. Chapter 6: Nodes, Edges, and Statistical (In)dependence

9. Chapter 7: The Four-Step Process of Causal Inference

10. Chapter 8: Causal Models – Assumptions and Challenges

11. Chapter 9: Causal Inference and Machine Learning – from Matching to Meta-Learners

12. Chapter 10: Causal Inference and Machine Learning – Advanced Estimators, Experiments, Evaluations, and More

13. Chapter 11: Causal Inference and Machine Learning – Deep Learning, NLP, and Beyond

14. Part 3: Causal Discovery

15. Chapter 12: Can I Have a Causal Graph, Please?

16. Chapter 13: Causal Discovery and Machine Learning – from Assumptions to Applications

17. Chapter 14: Causal Discovery and Machine Learning – Advanced Deep Learning and Beyond

18. Chapter 15: Epilogue

19. Index

20. Other Books You May Enjoy

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: