Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
How do we construct our causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs)—for example, for life-course modeling and analysis? In this commentary, I review how the data-driven construction of causal DAGs (causal discovery) has evolved, what promises it holds, and what limitations or caveats must be considered. I find that expert- or theory-driven model-building might benefit from some more checking against the data and that causal discovery could bring new ideas to old theories.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Vanessa Didelez (2024) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 10 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: