Yes, the classic example being the connection of lung cancer to smoking. Initially it was just a correlation, but the correlation encouraged scientists to see i

Yes, the classic example being the connection of lung cancer to smoking. Initially it was just a correlation, but the correlation encouraged scientists to see if there was actually a causal relationship (which of course there was). Yes, many (probably most) correlations are spurious, but the existence of a correlation is very useful for scientists looking to find a hypothesis to test.