It's unfortunate, but probably defensible. That is, if the correlation is high, then the correlation is high, and I'd rather observe and act on that than ignore

It's unfortunate, but probably defensible. That is, if the correlation is high, then the correlation is high, and I'd rather observe and act on that than ignore it. It's only unfortunate in that it legitimizes groupthink. Varying degress of conservatism with a small C should ideally be allowed and encouraged, the same as varying degrees of novelty-seeking vs risk-aversion (value freedom vs value safety), tolerance for confrontation or debate, logic vs emotion, etc, etc.