In plain words: A reply defends an earlier idea that uses several known causes of an outcome to help account for hidden confounding factors. It argues the critique never backs up its charges of fundamental flaws, so the original premise still holds.

Abstract

Ogburn et al. (2019, arXiv:1910.05438) discuss "The Blessings of Multiple Causes" (Wang and Blei, 2018, arXiv:1805.06826). Many of their remarks are interesting. But they also claim that the paper has "foundational errors" and that its "premise is...incorrect." These claims are not substantiated. There are no foundational errors; the premise is correct.

Yixin Wang, David M. Blei
arXiv:1910.07320 · stat.ML, cs.LG · submitted Oct 15, 2019 · updated Dec 20, 2019
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