How in the hell are we still living in a universe where there is no *complete* replacement for #Mplus?

By now there should be some #rlang code, or even #Python, that takes Mplus scripts as input and just does them. And yet, no.

Everybody I know who uses Mplus says -- with complete seriousness (!!) -- that there are R packages that implement some of its functions, but they still need Mplus to do everything.

What am I missing? Why?

@rstats #wtf #science #stats #sem #structuralequationmodeling

Does anyone have a set of articles for teaching #SEM #StructuralEquationModeling that are relatively short, straightforward, and also mostly accurate? I have a hard time finding papers that are not either very complex or riddled with technical errors. (Errors are useful for teaching but I wish they weren't quite so prevalent...) Or do you teach SEM to #undergraduates and have tips/resources to share? Prepping a small undergrad seminar and trying to keep it simple...
Occasionally someone in my place of work tracks me down, because I know something about #structuralequationmodeling.
This often consists of a conversation where I spend my time saying "No, it won't work".
Whoever first said that #sem can be used to determine #causal relations has a lot to answer for.