Causal Diagrams: Pitfalls and Tips

I can’t quite piece together the overall links between causal models, causal diagrams, and causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) – but there’s an EdX course:

https://www.edx.org/course/causal-diagrams-draw-your-assumptions-before-your

A very messy wikipedia article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_model

Some very old university stuff: http://causality.cs.ucla.edu/blog/index.php/about/

Directed acyclic graphs: a tool for causal studies in paediatrics: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-018-0071-3

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Causal Diagrams: Pitfalls and Tips

J Epidemiol. 2020; 30(4): 153–162.Published online 2020 Apr 5. Prepublished online 2020 Feb 1. doi: 10.2188/jea.JE20190192PMCID: PMC7064555PMID: 32009103

Causal Diagrams: Pitfalls and Tips

Etsuji Suzuki,¹Tomohiro Shinozaki,² and Eiji Yamamoto³Author informationArticle notesCopyright and License informationDisclaimerThis article has been cited by other articles in PMC.Go to:

Abstract

Graphical models are useful tools in causal inference, and causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are used extensively to determine the variables for which it is sufficient to control for confounding to estimate causal effects. We discuss the following ten pitfalls and tips that are easily overlooked when using DAGs: 1) Each node on DAGs corresponds to a random variable and not its realized values; 2) The presence or absence of arrows in DAGs corresponds to the presence or absence of individual causal effect in the population; 3) “Non-manipulable” variables and their arrows should be drawn with care; 4) It is preferable to draw DAGs for the total population, rather than for the exposed or unexposed groups; 5) DAGs are primarily useful to examine the presence of confounding in distribution in the notion of confounding in expectation; 6) Although DAGs provide qualitative differences of causal structures, they cannot describe details of how to adjust for confounding; 7) DAGs can be used to illustrate the consequences of matching and the appropriate handling of matched variables in cohort and case-control studies; 8) When explicitly accounting for temporal order in DAGs, it is necessary to use separate nodes for each timing; 9) In certain cases, DAGs with signed edges can be used in drawing conclusions about the direction of bias; and 10) DAGs can be (and should be) used to describe not only confounding bias but also other forms of bias. We also discuss recent developments of graphical models and their future directions.Key words: bias, causal inference, causality, confounding, directed acyclic graphs

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Causal Diagrams: Pitfalls and Tips

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Strategic Choice Approach

Strategic Choice Approach

The Strategic Choice Approach is used in face to face workshops of a decision making group.

Strategic choice is viewed as an ongoing process in which the planned management of uncertainty plays a crucial role.

The Strategic Choice Approach:

1. Focuses on decisions to be made in a particular planning situation, whatever their timescale and whatever their substance.
2. Highlights the subtle judgements involved in agreeing how to handle the uncertainties which surround the decision to be addressed – whether these be technical, political or procedural.
3. The approach is an incremental one, rather than one which looks towards an end product of a comprehensive strategy at some future point in time. This principle is expressed through a framework known as a `commitment package’. In this, an explicit balance is agreed between decisions to be made now and those to be left open until specified time horizons in the future.
4. The approach is interactive, in the sense that it is designed not for use by experts in a backroom setting, but as a framework for communication and collaboration between people with different backgrounds and skills.

The Essential Framework.

There are three key elements of analysis which are used in structuring problems and working towards decisions

The Decision AreaThe Comparison AreaThe Uncertainty Area – divides into three broad categoriesUncertainties to do with the working environmentUncertainties to do with guiding valuesUncertainties to do with related choices

There are four modes of strategic choiceShapingDesigningComparingChoosing

Software

The Strategic Choice Approach was originally developed using flip charts and wall space, however, a software package called “Strategic Advisor” or “STRAD” for short was developed and released in February 1991. The intention of this software package is to support individuals and small groups in the more informal use of the approach.

References

• Friend, John. “New directions in software for strategic choice”. European Journal of Operational Research. 1992, 61, pp 154-164.
• Friend, JK. & Hickling, A. “Planning Under pressure: the Strategic Choice Approach”. 1987. Pergamon (Urban and Regional Planning Series, Volume 37). Oxford.

from a selection of ‘decision support tools’

Strategic Choice Approach

Thanks to a recent Cybernetics Society talk by Professor Peter Kawalek, Director of the Centre for Information Management

Donna Haraway

Donna J. Haraway (born September 6, 1944) is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States.^[1] She is a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies, described in the early 1990s as a “feminist and postmodernist“.^[2] Haraway is the author of numerous foundational books and essays that bring together questions of science and feminism, such as “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” (1985) and “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective” (1988).^[3][4] Additionally, for her contributions to the intersection of information technology and feminist theory, Haraway is widely cited in works related to Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Her Situated Knowledges and Cyborg Manifesto publications in particular, have sparked discussion within the HCI community regarding framing the positionality from which research and systems are designed. She is also a leading scholar in contemporary ecofeminism, associated with post-humanism and new materialism movements.^[5][6] Her work criticizes anthropocentrism, emphasizes the self-organizing powers of nonhuman processes, and explores dissonant relations between those processes and cultural practices, rethinking sources of ethics.^[7]

Haraway has taught Women’s Studies and the History of Science at the University of Hawaii and Johns Hopkins University. Haraway’s works have contributed to the study of both human-machine and human-animal relations. Her works have sparked debate in primatology, philosophy, and developmental biology.^[8] Haraway participated in a collaborative exchange with the feminist theorist Lynn Randolph from 1990 to 1996. Their engagement with specific ideas relating to feminism, technoscience, political consciousness, and other social issues, formed the images and narrative of Haraway’s book Modest_Witness for which she received the Society for Social Studies of Science‘s (4S) Ludwik Fleck Prize in 1999.^[9][10] In 2000, Haraway was awarded the Society for Social Studies of Science’s John Desmond Bernal Prize for her distinguished contributions to the field of science and technology studies.^[11] Haraway serves on the advisory board for numerous academic journals, including differences, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Contemporary Women’s Writing, and Environmental Humanities.^[12][13][14]

Wikipedia continues:

Donna Haraway – Wikipedia

HARI KUNZRU02.01.1997 12:00 PM

You Are Cyborg

https://www.wired.com/1997/02/ffharaway/

ISSUE 9 / NATUREDECEMBER 07, 2019

A Giant Bumptious Litter: Donna Haraway on Truth, Technology, and Resisting Extinction

https://logicmag.io/nature/a-giant-bumptious-litter/

A Cyborg Manifesto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cyborg_Manifesto

link: https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1338134344045535233

Causal layered analysis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to navigationJump to search

Causal layered analysis (CLA) is a technique used in strategic planning and futurology to more effectively shape the future.^[1][2] The technique was pioneered by Sohail Inayatullah, a Pakistani-Australian futurology researcher.^[3]

Contents

• 1Theory
• 2History of research
• 3See also
• 4References

Theory[edit]

Causal layered analysis works by identifying many different levels, and attempting to make synchronized changes at all levels to create a coherent new future. Inayatullah’s original paper^[3] as well as his TEDx talk^[4] identify four levels:

1. The litany: This includes quantitative trends, often exaggerated and used for political purposes. The result could be a feeling of apathy, helplessness, or projected action. Inayatullah calls this “the conventional level of futures research which can readily create a politics of fear.”^[3]
2. Social causes, including economic, cultural, political, and historical factors.
3. Structure and the discourse that legitimizes and supports the structure.
4. Metaphor and myth

History of research[edit]

CLA was first introduced explicitly as a futures research technique by Sohail Inayatullah in a 1998 article for Futures that would come to be widely cited.^[3] Later, Inayatullah would edit the CLA Reader, that featured chapters from a number of futurists and practitioners describing their experience with CLA.^[5][6]

Inayatullah’s work on CLA was examined in a book by Jose W. Ramos in 2003.^[7]

A 2008 article by Chris Riedy examined the similarities, differences, and possible combinations of CLA and Ken Wilber‘s integral theory.^[8]

A 2010 article by Gary P. Hampson explored the relationship between integral futures and CLA further, and also considered Richard Slaughter‘s critique of CLA.^[9]

Sohail Inayatullah and Ivana Milojevic have published an update in 2015.^[10] With various authors, they investigate topics such as:

• The Global Financial Crisis
• Terrorism futures
• Global governance
• Ageing and the changing workforce
• Educational and university futures
• Climate change
• Water futures in the Muslim world
• The alternative futures of China
• Agricultural policy in Australia
• The new national narrative in Singapore

source:

Causal layered analysis – Wikipedia

Wait – a *complex* system? But fundamentally mostly predictable? How can this be?!

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Barotropic Global Ocean Tides – YouTube

Barotropic Global Ocean Tides

24 Nov 2020

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio18.9K subscribersSUBSCRIBEDOcean tides are not simple. If our planet had no continents, tides would be hemispheric-sized bulges of water moving westward with the moon and sun. This animation shows the tides as a complex system of rotating and trapped waves with a mixture of frequencies. Waves run relatively unimpeded westward only around Antarctica. Even there, we see a complicated pattern as waves merge from the north and others separate northwards or southwards under Antarctic ice shelves. In the North Atlantic, we see waves mainly rotating anti-clockwise, with small amplitudes in the middle of the ocean and high amplitudes around the boundaries, especially along the coasts of northwest Europe and Britain. Waves are trapped and rotating around New Zealand, causing a high tide on one side of the islands with a simultaneous low tide on the other side. The Topex/Poseidon and Jason satellite altimeter missions were designed to observe and record this complexity. Altimeters, on these missions, acted as flying tide gauges. After several years collecting data, researchers could analyze the signals at each ocean location to determine the tidal characteristics. With that knowledge, plus near-perfect knowledge of the motion of the sun and moon, the tide can be predicted at any location and at any time in the future. The data used in this visualization is from the Goddard Space Flight Center’s barotropic tides simulation and runs for slightly longer than one Earth day. The level of the tides is exaggerated in order to show how the tides vary around the world. This animation with voiceover narration shows the barotropic global ocean tides as a complex system of rotating and trapped waves with a mixture of frequencies. Complete transcript available. Visualizer: Greg Shirah (lead) For more information or to download this public domain video, go to https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4821#28859

I’m participating (on the panel) in what I understand to be an informal, medium-size group conversation

Register at: https://www.meetup.com/growing-the-edge/events/275103226/

Bucking the system: a cybernetic approach to transformation Event by Growing the edge Online Join here Join the event here Dec 17, 2020, 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM (your local time) Add to calendar Registration link

Bucking the system: a cybernetic approach to transformation

Thursday, Dec 17, 2020, 5:30 PM

Online event
,

6 Members Attending

Systems thinking creates a lot of buzz these days. This episode explores the surprising dynamics of feedback, emergence and interconnectedness and the powerful effects these have on our lives.

Check out this Meetup →

+8 Jon Jorgensen, Lasha Markozashvili and 11 other attendees Invite connections Share MoreLinkedIn

A new thing to me, and a somehow repellent concept – but I’m sure there are many good people doing good work in the field!

Organizational behavior management – Wikipedia

Organizational behavior management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to navigationJump to search

Organizational behavior management (OBM) is a subdiscipline of applied behavior analysis (ABA), which is the application of behavior analytic principles and contingency management techniques to change behavior in organizational settings. Through these principles and assessment of behavior, OBM seeks to analyze and employ antecedent, influencing actions of an individual before the action occurs, and consequence, what happens as a result of someone’s actions, interventions which influence behaviors linked to the mission and key objectives of the organization and its workers. Such interventions have proven effective through research in improving common organizational areas including employee productivity, delivery of feedback, safety, and overall morale of said organization

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Organizational behavior management – Wikipedia

Applied behavior analysis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis

Excellent rich content from the Systems Sanctuary as usual – I urge you to subscribe.

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Inspiration, Events and News on Systems Change

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TOP LINKS & INSPIRATION ON SYSTEMS CHANGE    “Warm and human facilitation, good structure, sense of openness. The huge diversity of work people are undertaking was stimulating and inspiring” – Participant In the Thick of It 

Inspiration, Events and News on Systems Change

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Improvisation Blog: Networks and Biology: Wiring ourselves into a bad theory

Networks and Biology: Wiring ourselves into a bad theory

The one thing that can be said about networks is that they are easy to draw. Anyone who’s done “join the dots”, or who has looked at a map, or studied physiology or neuroanatomy understands networks in their essence: a set of points joined together with lines. The join-the-dots pattern permeates the natural world like a kind of fractal motif. But what we see and what things actually are, are not the same. How would we know if networks actually exist?  

In order to know whether a network is real, we would have to be able to establish some kind of correlation between our observations of the network’s structure (which is “the network”), its behaviour, and any changes we might make to that structure. Obviously, if the network is human-made, then the relationship between an electronic  network’s structure, how it behaves, and predictable outcomes in the light of changes to it would seem to be straight-forward. But in complex artificial networks, such as those defined by machine learning models, predictability in the light of network change is elusive. We are strangely unbothered by this, because we see the same type of unpredictability in natural networks. 

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Improvisation Blog: Networks and Biology: Wiring ourselves into a bad theory

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Samuel V. Scarpino #BlackLivesMatter on Twitter: “The intensity of #COVID19 epidemics is heavily influenced by population structure. Our new paper analyzing high-resolution case, population, & mobility data from China and Italy is out today in @NatureMedicine. Co-led w/ @MOUGK & @EvolveDotZoo. 1/15 https://t.co/cCbejK0Wv5 https://t.co/aBd6LtEpO9” / Twitter

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(1) Samuel V. Scarpino #BlackLivesMatter on Twitter: “The intensity of #COVID19 epidemics is heavily influenced by population structure. Our new paper analyzing high-resolution case, population, & mobility data from China and Italy is out today in @NatureMedicine. Co-led w/ @MOUGK & @EvolveDotZoo. 1/15 https://t.co/cCbejK0Wv5 https://t.co/aBd6LtEpO9” / Twitter

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HOME | CriticalSystemsForum

INTRODUCTION

Before being born, until the day we die we depend on systems

We are largely unaware of our dependence on systems, until we need them, or when they fail us — when governments and health systems seem unable to protect us from a pandemic, when the economy is in poor health and we cannot find work, when flood defence systems fail, the car breaks down, high levels of pollution impact our health, crime rates surge, we are the victim of a cyber security attack, or our internet connection fails. 

​

Given their fundamental importance to each and every one of us, should we not have a far better understanding of systems — the way they work and their impact on us? This question led to the formation of the Critical Systems Forum, a think tank hosted by the Enlightened Enterprise Academy. It will focus on both Critical Systems Thinking and Practice, sharing knowledge and offering courses. 

A widespread understanding of the benefits of Critical Systems Thinking and Practice will be valuable to government, business, and organisations of all types in all sectors. They will be able to: Mitigate system failures and underperformance; Maximise the chances of positive outcomes from systems design, change, and management; Demonstrate systemic leadership; Address problems holistically; Take better decisions; Be more innovative; Undertake organisational transformation; Get the best out of people and teams; Provide service excellence; Demonstrably contribute to societal and environmental improvement; and promote inclusion. Our work will produce a growing body of knowledge that the leaders of enterprises will be able to access whenever it is needed. They will also be able to read, or watch, up to date research and interviews from a wide range of international sources. 

contact@criticalsystemsforum.com

ABOUT

Dr Michael Jackson invited the Enlightened Enterprise Academy (EEA) to establish a ‘think-tank’ with a focus on Critical Systems Thinking and practice, in relation to major social, environmental, and organisational issues, and relevant to businesses and organisations in all sectors.

The invitation followed separate discussions between Dr Jackson and Paul Barnett, Founder of the EEA, regarding the design of executive education courses in Critical Systems Thinking and Practice (CST&P), starting early 2021.

That conversation was itself preceded by Dr Jackson’s participation in the conference “Undaunted: How Successful Leaders Face Up to Wicked Problems and Avoid Predictable Surprises” which took place in March 2020 at the Royal Society of Arts in London. The focus was problem solving, complexity, decision making, risk and systems thinking.

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Paul also spoke on the same topic to a conference of Warwick Business School DBA cohorts prior to that and has run related conferences on topics such as overcoming the problems of organisational silos. Additionally, Paul strongly recommends Mike’s book: Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity: Responsible Leadership for a Complex World (Wiley 2019).   

The Critical Systems Forum is now being designed and developed for a launch in in early 2021. A Draft Development Plan will be considered by the Steering Committee that is currently being formed.

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Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline – YouTube