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Causal Inference & Experimentation

The Causal Question

DAGs: Drawing Your Assumptions

10 min+100 XPStep 1/10

A DAG is a claim, not a picture

A directed acyclic graph encodes your causal beliefs: nodes are variables, edges are 'directly causes'. Treatment → Outcome says treatment affects outcome. Age → both says age confounds.

Two disciplines make DAGs earn their keep:

  • Omissions are claims too — leaving out 'seasonality' asserts it doesn't drive both your variables. The DAG forces you to say the quiet assumptions out loud.
  • The graph implies testable structure — some relationships it predicts must be (in)dependent; check them against data and the graph gets graded too.

A DAG you can't defend is a hypothesis with a confidence costume.