I've (sadly) conditioned myself to reading post hoc ergo propter hoc statements as effectively useless in today's time. There are some statements that I suspec

I've (sadly) conditioned myself to reading post hoc ergo propter hoc statements as effectively useless in today's time. There are some statements that I suspect make intuitive conclusions, and many of which I suspect are right (e.g., availability of birth control lowers the rate of abortions and unplanned pregnancies), but even those with which I agree are relegated to the portion of my mind that holds the "do not recite this" category of statistics. I understand why people are so susceptible to it, and indeed, what makes the scientific method so damn hard to being with, is because isolation and controls in the real world are indeed very hard to come by, but I do wish that it was something we could do less.