The Book of Why

The New Science of Cause and Effect

De: Judea Pearl, Dana Mackenzie

Narrado por: Mel Foster

How the study of causality revolutionized science and the world

"Correlation does not imply causation." This mantra has been invoked by scientists for decades, and has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. But today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, sparked by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and placed causality--the study of cause and effect--on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.

© 2018 by Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie. ℗ 2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Excellent book but hard to listen to as an audiobook

This book is absolutely worth a read for anyone doing data science. But, since it makes a lot of references to figures in the supplementary PDF and reads out complicated equations, it’s difficult to listen to as an audiobook.

Great book. Worth a listen and a challenge.

Great book. Had to put my statistics thinking cap on but super interesting. Definitely worth a listen if you want to challenge yourself. And it will challenge and download the pdf to follow along with the diagrams. It is needed.

A True Miracle

This work represents a foundational knowledge obtained by a few, desperately needed by all. Key truths to morality and agency can be gleaned by a reader interacting with the text.

I, for one, am a better person.

this changes everything

accessible lessons, endearing anecdotes, and a brilliant introduction to causal analysis from the man who revoutionized statistics and pioneered artificial intelligence.

Judea Pearl is a Hebrew Bible iconoclast — and a prophet. He shattered statistical orthodoxy, then placed the axe of causal reasoning in the hands of our machines. Do you believe him? I do.

a must read, yet long winded, annoying narration

The ideas and their syntheses are unparalleled. This book is a must read. But it could be condensed to around 1/3 of its length without losing any of its explanatory power. Someone should do that!

Secondly, the narrator is annoying. His intonation is that of a grade school teacher, up and down. And by the way this should be listened to at about 1.5x speed. In some parts I would like 2.5x. Yet in others I'd wish to slow it down to 0.8x.

In any case, you should read this book. Purchase it, as it is truly valuable.

My gripe is that it's not dry enough, and is therefore tedious. Yet it is more practical than reading the research papers.