Starting with a hypothesis doesn't require a detailed mechanism. Both questions posed in the article have a proposed mechanism - they clearly have a cause and p

Starting with a hypothesis doesn't require a detailed mechanism. Both questions posed in the article have a proposed mechanism - they clearly have a cause and proposed effect listed. This isn't the same thing as mining a giant generic database looking for arbitrary correlation. The replication issue highlighted here is how choices in analytical approach can yield differing answers. This would be true even if you had a detailed proposed mechanism.