I recently wrote about how applied causal inference can align with what Feynman called "cargo cult science"; namely, when we state identification assumptions without interrogating them. I use an example from nutritional epidemiology to convey the problem: miceandtigers.substack.com/p/cargo-cult...

Cargo Cult Causal Inference

Identification is a proof; real-data analysis is an inverse problem. Reciting causal assumptions instead of interrogating them is cargo cult causal inference.

miceandtigers.substack.com

ACIC 2026 was great! Thanks to @edwardhkennedy.bsky.social, as well as Vasilis Syrgkanis (Stanford), Yuxuan Chen (UMich), and @dscharf3.bsky.social for their contributions to our symposium on CATEs in Longitudinal Data. My intro slides are ainaimi.github.io/files/presen....

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 🎤 If you’ve read this far and still need convincing, please check out our preprint arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 and this infographic: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... 10/10

📊 Next week, we'll be exploring a new #statistics modelling framework called regression by composition, with examples from growth modelling & HIV trials #healthdata 🗓️ Tuesday 4 November, 12:50-13:50 GMT 📍 LSHTM | Online Join us ⬇️ www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/e...

For years I had trouble following some of the discussion about confidence bands, but at ACIC this year @noahgreifer.bsky.social pointed me to a helpful paper So you don't have to be as perplexed as I once was, we have a new pre-print introducing the key ideas arxiv.org/abs/2510.07076

Confidence Regions for Multiple Outcomes, Effect Modifiers, and Other Multiple Comparisons

In epidemiology, some have argued that multiple comparison corrections are not necessary as there is rarely interest in the universal null hypothesis. From a parameter estimation perspective, epidemio...

arxiv.org