relationship where one event (cause) produces another (effect)
requires temporal ordering: cause precedes effect
requires a mechanism or pathway linking cause to effect
distinct from correlation: co-occurrence alone does not establish causation
Hume's criteria: contiguity, succession, constant conjunction
Pearl's do-calculus and directed acyclic graphs formalize causal inference
counterfactual test: if the cause had been absent, the effect would not have occurred
central to science, law, medicine, and engineering: identifying causes enables intervention
confounding variables, reverse causation, and selection bias obscure causal relationships