IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scjsta/v34y2007i1p155-168.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What can Statistics Contribute to a Causal Understanding?

Author

Listed:
  • ODD O. AALEN
  • ARNOLDO FRIGESSI

Abstract

. We discuss the concept of causality in a broad manner. The traditional attitude in statistics has been to shy away from the causality concept. In recent years, however, a more proactive attitude to the causality concept has developed among statisticians. On the one hand, there is the school of counterfactual causality directed towards forming a better basis for clinical trials and epidemiology. On the other hand, there is the mechanistic view of causality. These developments are discussed and set into a larger context, where the often ignored role of time is emphasized. An extension of path analysis to stochastic processes is briefly presented. Causality is furthermore discussed in relation to genetic studies and to the emerging field of systems biology. Statisticians should also relate to the philosophical content of causality, especially that found in the foundations of physics.

Suggested Citation

  • Odd O. Aalen & Arnoldo Frigessi, 2007. "What can Statistics Contribute to a Causal Understanding?," Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics;Finnish Statistical Society;Norwegian Statistical Association;Swedish Statistical Association, vol. 34(1), pages 155-168, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scjsta:v:34:y:2007:i:1:p:155-168
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9469.2006.00549.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9469.2006.00549.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9469.2006.00549.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bachirou O. Taddé & Hélène Jacqmin‐Gadda & Jean‐François Dartigues & Daniel Commenges & Cécile Proust‐Lima, 2020. "Dynamic modeling of multivariate dimensions and their temporal relationships using latent processes: Application to Alzheimer's disease," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 76(3), pages 886-899, September.
    2. Karl Friston, 2009. "Causal Modelling and Brain Connectivity in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(2), pages 1-6, February.
    3. Eichler, M. & Didelez, V., 2009. "On Granger-causality and the effect of interventions in time series," Research Memorandum 003, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    4. Petrovic, Ljiljana & Dimitrijevic, Sladjana, 2011. "Invariance of statistical causality under convergence," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(9), pages 1445-1448, September.
    5. Petrović, Ljiljana & Dimitrijević, Sladjana, 2012. "Causality with finite horizon of the past in continuous time," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(7), pages 1219-1223.
    6. Daniel Commenges & Anne Gégout‐Petit, 2009. "A general dynamical statistical model with causal interpretation," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 71(3), pages 719-736, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:scjsta:v:34:y:2007:i:1:p:155-168. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0303-6898 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.