Judea Pearl: ordinary language is pre-scientific — it helped alchemists make glass, not turn lead into gold
yudapearl · x · 2026-08-28
Statistician Frank Harrell pushed back on Pearl's recurring claim that statisticians lacked causal inference for RCTs, arguing ordinary-language experiment design has ruled out alternatives for a long time. Pearl countered that ordinary language is pre-scientific: it let alchemists craft colorful glass vessels, yet couldn't convince them lead can't become gold — formal causal frameworks matter.
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