Judea Pearl

Israeli-American computer scientist · United States · On the map · Scientists · Born 1936 · age 90

Judea Pearl is an Israeli-American electrical engineer, computer scientist and philosopher, best known for championing the probabilistic approach to artificial intelligence and the development of Bayesian networks.

Judea Pearl is read about 230 times a day, in 33 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 6 November 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 400 days, one point a day.

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A life in dates

2025Foreign Member of the Royal SocietyAward2024Kampé de Fériet AwardAward2019Fellow of the American Statistical AssociationAward2018“Data do not understand causes and effects; humans do.”In their wordsThe Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect (2018), co-authored with Dana Mackenzie, Basic Books, p. 1.Read the whole statement

“You cannot answer a question that you cannot ask, and you cannot ask a question that you have no words for.”In their wordsThe Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect (2018), co-authored with Dana Mackenzie, Basic Books, p. 10.Read the whole statement

2016Dickson Prize in ScienceAward2015ACM FellowAward2012Harvey PrizeAward2011Rumelhart PrizeAwardTuring AwardAward2009“Traditional statistics is strong in devising ways of describing data and inferring distributional parameters from sample.”In their wordsPearl, Judea. "Causal inference in statistics: An overview." Statistics Surveys 3 (2009): 96-146.Read the whole statement

2008“The research questions that motivate most quantitative studies in the health, social and behavioral sciences are not statistical but causal in nature.”In their wordsPearl, Judea (2008) "Causal Inference," in: Pearl, Judea. The science and ethics of causal modeling. (2010).Read the whole statement

Benjamin Franklin MedalAward2003ACM-AAAI Allen Newell AwardAward2001Lakatos AwardAward1999IJCAI Award for Research ExcellenceAward1990AAAI FellowAward1988“Mr. Holmes receives a telephone call from his neighbor Dr. Watson who states that he hears the sound of a burglar alarm from the direction of Mr. Holmes' house.”In their wordsp. 42: Example of an uncertain evidenceRead the whole statement

“When loops are present, the network is no longer singly connected and local propagation schemes will invariably run into trouble..”In their wordsp. 195Read the whole statement

1936Born4 September 1936

People around Judea

Eliezer Yudkowsky Influenced by Judea

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Media & music

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In their own words 3

Judea Pearl

3 statements, newest first

An event recognised as responsible for the production of a certain outcome...
2009 · p. 309, as cited in: Rinke Hoekstra (2009), Ontology Representation: Design Patterns and Ontologies... p. 181, Own words
A quantity Q(M) is identifiable, given a set of assumptions A, iffor any two models M1 and M2 that satisfy A, we have
2000 · Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference, 2000, Own words
Haavelmo was the ﬁrst to recognize the capacity of economic models to guide policies.
Judea Pearl, "Trygve Haavelmo and the emergence of causal calculus." University of California Los Angeles, Computer Science Department, CA., Own words

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Awards

Foreign Member of the Royal Society2025

Kampé de Fériet Award2024

Fellow of the American Statistical Association2019

Dickson Prize in Science2016

ACM Fellow2015

Harvey Prize2012

Turing Award2011

Rumelhart Prize2011

Benjamin Franklin Medal2008

ACM-AAAI Allen Newell Award2003

Lakatos Award2001

IJCAI Award for Research Excellence1999

AAAI Fellow1990

Honorary doctorate from University of Toronto

Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society

IEEE Fellow

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

About this person

He is also credited for developing a theory of causal and counterfactual inference based on structural models. In 2011, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) awarded Pearl with the Turing Award, the highest distinction in computer science, "for fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence through the development of a calculus for probabilistic and causal reasoning". He is the author of several books, including the technical Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference, and The Book of Why, a book on causality aimed at the general public.

Country

United States