What they are really fighting about is who gets to reference colloquial notions of causality when discussing their work. I don't think it's fair to say that Pe

What they are really fighting about is who gets to reference colloquial notions of causality when discussing their work. I don't think it's fair to say that Pearl treats the rest of stats as trash, but he is saying that they are misleading folks by describing their inference as evidence of cause and effect - which is about as bad for most academics and especially for the Rubin crew who have often policed integrity of other inference regimes (like less rigorous ML). Debating who gets to use which words is a great way to make sure your debate only matters to other academics. I'd love to see the causality camp make their point by unlocking some great new applied results instead!