Invited commentary: where do the causal DAGS come from?

Abstract

Abstract How do we construct our causal directed acyclic graphs (DAGs)—for example, for life-course modeling and analysis? In this commentary, I review how the data-driven construction of causal DAGs (causal discovery) has evolved, what promises it holds, and what limitations or caveats must be considered. I find that expert- or theory-driven model-building might benefit from some more checking against the data and that causal discovery could bring new ideas to old theories.