Marcel Santos's Reviews > The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect

I read around 75% of this one. I came across this book after starting to listen to some professionals of evidence-based medicine, which is a fascinating field using advanced scientific methods. Concepts such as Bayesian analysis, among others, represent a challenge to someone like me who deals with areas of knowledge (mostly Law and Economics) which are still far from using them. The prospect of understanding more deeply the constantly repeated phrase “correlation is not causation”, which has extensive application in many different areas (including Law and Economics), made me take courage and venture into it. Another motivation was my experience in noticing that scientific methods, language and concepts born in one field have been increasingly borrowed by others, signaling possible ambitious unifications.

However, I must acknowledge that this is too deep a trip into advanced notions of statistics and mathematics. The authors try their best to make the covered issues readable even to some greater public, but they weren’t successful in my opinion. The book requires the reader to have solid background in those fields, and even ones holding such knowledge would need to thoroughly concentrate and study what’s being read (which means reading some passages over and over). I have no doubt that this is a master piece on an absolutely relevant issue - it seems even like a solid framework for technology evolution. Unfortunately it is out of reach to those not into Exact Sciences. It would be unfair if I rated it.

Never mind. I may come back to it in the future if my studies drive me again to the issue.