A causal inference is something like “given our data about X and Y, we can say that X causes Y.”
Beware of drawing causal inferences about the social world.1
Lily Hu, “Direct Effects,” Phenomenal World, September 25, 2020, https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/direct-effects/; Issa Kohler-Hausmann, “Eddie Murphy and the Dangers of Counterfactual Causal Thinking About Detecting Racial Discrimination,” Northwestern University Law Review 113, no. 5 (2019): 1163–228, https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol113/iss5/6; Megan T. Stevenson, “Cause, Effect, and the Structure of the Social World,” SSRN Scholarly Paper 4445710, Rochester, NY, prepublished May 11, 2023, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4445710.