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Why causal maps found by optimization can be misleading
Hazhir Aliahmadi, Irina Babayan, Greg van Anders
June 4, 2026
Finding cause-and-effect relationships in data typically means optimizing a single best network structure. But this misses a crucial problem: different causal maps can fit the same data equally well. This work uses entropy-based inference to generate ensembles of plausible causal graphs rather than picking one winner, then shows that "optimized" networks often include spurious relationships absent from other equally valid structures.
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