Good scientific papers explicitly state what you can and cannot conclude from the data. Even if it is a case of "this is the best we can do" because there's no

Good scientific papers explicitly state what you can and cannot conclude from the data. Even if it is a case of "this is the best we can do" because there's no data to address the omitted variable, that should be clear. I have a PhD in an area where (a) it's difficult to conduct experiments, and (b) it's often hard or impossible to get data for some variables. No one likes the person who critiques a paper presentation by saying, "you're not controlling for variable x" without providing a reason why it's an omitted variable and how you can proxy for it (if it's not directly available). But you also won't get far if you aren't clear about the limitations of your paper.