{"paper":{"title":"Causal Geodesy: Counterfactual Estimation Along the Path Between Correlation and Causation","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["math.ST","stat.TH"],"primary_cat":"stat.ME","authors_text":"Kyle Schindl, Larry Wasserman","submitted_at":"2025-08-11T22:15:19Z","abstract_excerpt":"We introduce causal geodesy, a framework for studying the landscape of stochastic interventions that lie between the two extremes of performing no intervention, and performing a sharp intervention that sets an exposure equal to a specific value. We define this framework by constructing paths of distributions that smoothly interpolate between the treatment density and a point mass at the target intervention. Thus, each path starts at a purely observational (or correlational) quantity and moves into a counterfactual world. Of particular interest are paths that correspond to geodesics in some met"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2508.08499","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2508.08499/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}