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In their paper, SSK claim that scientists are susceptible not only to misunderstandings, but also to *illusions of understanding* in which we deceive ourselves into thinking we have better causal explanations for phenomena than we do

After backing up this claim up with a few familiar statistical examples (Simpson's paradox, Lord's paradox, Stein's paradox, and regression to the mean), SSK map out a partial list of the kinds of illusions that scientists purportedly find themselves under & propose ways to resist these illusions

Putting aside the optics of making such a claim as right-wing forces use alarmist metascience to dismantle research institutions, as scientists studying causal cognition, we think that these kinds of arguments should be supported by empirical evidence. We make three counter-arguments:

1. SSK present science as a theory-free enterprise, but we have an entire field dedicated to causal inference! Notably, their examples dissolve if one specifies a research question, fixes an estimand, and deploys a valid causal identification strategy in line with modern practice