The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect

by Judea Pearl

Galton conjectured, regression toward the mean was a physical process, nature’s way of ensuring that the distribution of height (or intelligence) remained the same from generation to generation.

How could you assign people chosen at random to smoke for decades, possibly ruining their health, just to see if they would get lung cancer after thirty years? It’s impossible to imagine anyone outside North Korea “volunteering” for such a study.

That is very telling.

Louis Pasteur said, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

Good quote

It’s truly amazing to see how this fragile butterfly of an idea fluttered almost unnoticed through two generations before reemerging triumphantly into the light.

The reason I am reading this book.

A new paradigm has evolved according to which it is okay to base your claims on assumptions as long as you make your assumptions transparent so that you and others can judge how plausible they are and how sensitive your claims are to their violation.

I like this one. To me, it means, don’t accept things because everyone else does.