I too found Pearl's book hard to navigate on first attempt. Do not let that stop you! After a hiatus, I stumbled upon this blog post [1], which explained the

I too found Pearl's book hard to navigate on first attempt. Do not let that stop you! After a hiatus, I stumbled upon this blog post [1], which explained the core ideas in Pearl's framework beautifully in a simple language. My advice is to persist, fill any holes in fundamentals (mostly basic probability), and persist. After working out the examples in the blog post on paper and contrasting it to other ideas out there (potential outcome framework), it became quite clear what Pearl was trying to articulate. Pearl is also an enthusiastic speaker. You can search for his talks online at various venues (Stanford, Microsoft Research, etc.) to learn more. [1] http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/if-correlation-doesnt-imply-causation-then-what-does/ http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/if-correlation-doesnt-impl...