Causality and Experiments

Does the death penalty have a deterrent effect? Is chocolate good for you? Whatcauses breast cancer?

Observation is a key to good science. An observational study is one in whichscientists make conclusions based on data that they have observed but had nohand in generating. In data science, many such studies involve observations on agroup of individuals, a factor of interest called a treatment, and anoutcome measured on each individual.

The fundamental question is whether the treatment has an effect on the outcome.Any relation between the treatment and the outcome is called an association.If the treatment causes the outcome to occur, then the association is causal.Causality is at the heart of all three questions posed at the start of thissection. For example, one of the questions was whether chocolate directly causesimprovements in health, not just whether there there is a relation betweenchocolate and health.

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