Re:I am so tired of this freshman science bullshit (Score 1)

"I can't tell you how tired I am of people getting modded insightful for misunderstanding then regurgitating something that most people who discuss this subject should understand at a base level."
That's the part you should have been paying attention to, you totally missed my point.

I understood your point, but you missed mine. You may understand these issues on a level higher than the original poster, and sufficiently high to get modded up on /., but not on a level that is sufficient. In practice, controlling for confounding variables assumes that 1) those variables are measurable 2) you have a large enough sample size to be able to control for them without losing all statistical power, and 3) the method used to control will not introduce artifacts. There are plenty of correlational studies demonstrating all kinds of things, like correlations between diet soda and obesity, or daily multivitamin use with early death. Correlational studies on breastfeeding that attempted to control for every possible variable continued to show dramatic health benefits that were not replicated in randomized prospective trials. This stuff is all highly nontrivial--professionals have difficulty designing even randomized prospective trials that control for everything properly. You seem to think the original poster was wrong and you are right merely because you understand the concept of controlling for confounding variables. However, that's not worth much if it can't be performed in practice.