4.2 Deterministic vs. probabilistic causation

  • Q: Does smoking A (0/1) cause cancer B (0/1)?
  • Deterministic causation (Wikipedia)
    • “if A causes B, then A must always be followed by B”
  • Probabilistic causation
    • “A probabilistically causes B if A’s occurrence increases the probability of B” (Wikipedia).12
  • Q: Can you give me an example for both DC and PC?
  • Q: What could that look like in a dataset?
    • Deterministic: All individuals with Smoking = 1 have Cancer = 1.
    • Probabilistic: Individuals with Smoking = 1 have higher likelihood of having Cancer = 1.
  • Terminology
    • Cause = Treatment (Q: Where does “treatment” come from?)
    • Causal effect = Treatment effect

  1. “This is sometimes interpreted to reflect imperfect knowledge of a deterministic system but other times interpreted to mean that the causal system under study has an inherently indeterministic nature.” (Wikipedia)↩