The Book of Why

Start asking the big questions and learn how the study of causality revolutionized science and the world.

Cause and effect: it's at the center of scientific inquiry, and yet for decades scientists had no way of answering simple questions, such as whether smoking causes cancer. In The Book of Why, Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie show how Pearl's work on causality has broken through this stalemate, unleashing a revolution in our knowledge of the world. Anyone who wants to understand how science, the human mind, or artificial intelligence works needs The Book of Why.

"Illuminating. . . a valuable lesson on the history of ideas." --New York Times

"This book really gets you thinking about cause and effect as it applies to issues of our time. . . . Extraordinary." --Science Friday